Angels of the Night but Devils by Dark: (Serving with a Military Sentry Dog at Hahn Air Base, Germany)

By J.D. Bennett

What did you do when you were first free of mom’s apron strings? of dad’s rules? Did you go a little wild, party too much; as ‘THEY’ say, sow some wild oats? Well I did; it almost seemed like an obligation before taking on a more responsible life in society. I got into my share of trouble along the way and skated out of much of it; lost a good friend in an auto accident, suffering a broken back myself. This mostly accurate memoir is the telling of that time in my life and the experience I lived through in the process of finding my way from young man to adulthood. But it’s also intended to bring attention to and pay tribute to the proud heritage of the American Military Working Dog (MWD); in particular, a tribute to my canine partner in military service, Drusus von Stuben der Unhold (a.k.a. Sam).
Jerry manages to get reassigned to the K-9 or sentry dog security unit on his base where his propensity for outrageous behavior is not only accepted but is shared by the other guys in this unit. Jerry settled into a comfortable feeling of belonging and being a part of a group, they came to think of themselves, including their dogs, as a pack, its members were dedicated to fun loving, outrageous, devilish conduct in the night life available to them in Europe, calculated to provide maximum enjoyment; ‘angels of the night but devils by dark’.
Jerry survived his own misspent youth in Europe but almost did not. Coming back to base in a car driven by a friend, who had not been drinking, there was an accident that caused the car to smash into a stone wall. A close friend went through the windshield and was pronounced dead at the hospital and Jerry suffered a broken back and leg. Jerry’s recovery was probably hastened by the hospital staff’s desire to be done with him, his wheelies in his wheel chair and the wheel chair drag races he orchestrated (he wound up losing wheel chair privileges). After a few months of hospital stay and light duty recovery, Jerry left Germany.

• Language: English
• Publisher: BookBaby
• Release date: Apr 1, 2015
• ISBN: 9781483552323

Book preview

Acknowledgements

1

By all that’s normally considered to be right, I should not be here to tell you my story but, like many fools, the Good Lord or a reasonable facsimile, some higher (benevolent) entity must have watched after me, during my military service to my country. The experiences I will relate will seem somewhat familiar to that large, select audience made up of American military men and women and veterans but what makes my story unique, not exclusive but unique, is that a main character in this experience was my German Sheppard Dog, my military working dog partner, Sam, whose thoughts I have tried to surmise and include in the story and who also took care of me like a brother, while we were on duty in the various secured areas of the Air Forces military presence in West Germany. As I spin these memories of that time, you will have no difficulty with identifying the events that caused me to say that I probably have no right being here, alive --- today, not so much from the times when we were on duty, although there were risks for a man and his dog patrolling some isolated area with only a forty-five pistol to supplement the protection afforded by Sam, my greater actual challenges to continuing life happened when I was outside the good influence of Sam, during off-duty hours. Much of my off-duty conduct was, shall we say, fun loving and frivolous? This period of my life was formative, exciting, sad at times, filled with elation at other times, and, whatever else, made me aware of sensations of emotion which I had previously suppressed as much as possible. But I wouldn’t want those, hopefully entertaining moments, to detract from the importance of those who have sacrificed, some with the giving of several years of their life but others with more severe sacrifices of limb or even life. So please allow me to set that image first.

Over the two centuries and a couple of decades since our founding fathers created our form of government with liberty and individual freedoms, memorialized through the creation of our Constitution, young men and women have answered the call to serve our country and protect our freedoms and our way of life. Most often, this was a period in the lives of those who served when they were also working their way through the confusion of transitioning from childhood (or young adulthood) to adulthood. Sometimes the periods of service have been during wars, with all of the dangers and hazards associated with those terrible times, but our men and women served and sacrificed so that our homeland was kept safe. At other times those who served did so during times of relative peace to provide a deterrent to those who would want to injure our people, our country, our freedoms, and our way of life. A relatively few of our citizens served during these times, which pressed a certain stress upon them, so that the many at home could sleep well at night. [ A Gallup Poll reported around Veterans Day 2012 that about 13% of U. S. adults were veterans; 24% of men and 2% of women; with the strongest concentration being in older men.] One such period has been dubbed ‘The Cold War’; commonly accepted to have been during the period between 1947 and 1991. During the various times when these members of the military were actively engaged in their military duties they experienced stress to extreme stress to absolute horror. But, during their off duty hours, they frequently played as hard as they performed on duty and, perhaps harder and, perhaps, rightfully so. It was a time to try to evolve from youth to adult, to figure out who you were and where you were going in life, to find your morals and your value system, to become comfortable with your sexuality, to test the limits of previous parentally bridled mischievousness. I would wager that those who have served in the military will be able to identify with, not the specific events but the types of events I’m about to tell you of, in this story. There’s a certain satisfaction about having served your country but more than that there are fond memories (after the passage of ample time) of the camaraderie with fellow service men / women, bonds that will remain for a lifetime, if not actively at least in the warm spots of our memories.

My military service was during a time of relative peace, during the Cold War just before Vietnam got really going as a battle field war. My father had served in the Army during WW II, as did my uncle on my mother’s side, and another uncle-in-law served during this period, in the Navy. My maternal grandparents, whom were the grandparents I had the most contact as a child, were very proud of their country and passed on to me a strong sense of patriotism but it was with mixed feelings that I volunteered for the Air Force at that time because I saw many of my class mates going on the college and I was concerned that I would fall behind in developing a career. A deciding factor was the fact that every hiring agent for the good jobs I tried to get, so I could work my way through college, expressed concern because I didn’t have my military obligation out of the way. They may not have said it directly but they were concerned that I’d get drafted after they hired me and then they’d be stuck holding a job for me, by law.

When I entered the military, I had an interest in learning foreign languages so I was angling toward an assignment in linguistics and, when the opportunity came up late in basic training to test for that career field, I jumped at it. It was a grueling test; I was in no way prepared for the experience, the test was to listen to and attempt to translate an audio presentation of a language that I think the Air Force had made up, so knowing some foreign language would be of no help to those testing. Even at that, I learned on the same day that our career field orders came down that I had scored in second place on the test. Directly after I opened the letter with that result, our Training Instructors came in to the barracks and began handing out the written orders. I couldn’t wait to get mine, I was certain that I would get linguistics and my four years would be an interesting and rewarding experience. I was like the proverbial ‘kid on Christmas’ as I opened my orders with trembling hands, trying to calm myself enough that I didn’t rip the document and somehow ruin it. Heck, I was going to frame this – WAIT! …‥ AIR POLICE??? Surely there was a mistake and the Sergeant would fix it when I brought it to his attention, they must need language experts.

Pardon me Sergeant. I started timidly. I usually tried to attract little attention, one of my veteran uncles had advised me to ‘keep my head down’ and stay out of trouble. I think there’s been a mistake. They probably cut these orders before they got my language test results. I’m supposed to be going into linguistics. Can you help me get this straightened out?

After looking over my orders and my test results for a while, he looked at me with what seemed to me to be indifference and said,Sorry airman there’s no mistake. I knew that a few of you would be selected for the Air Police field and it’s what they call a frozen career field, once you’re assigned you can’t get out before serving one enlistment in it.

One enlistment – is he out of his mind?, I thought. I’m only serving one enlistment in anything.

Sarge, isn’t there anything I can do? You can see that a mistake has been made, can’t you?

I don’t think it was a mistake, airman. You’re going to be an Air Policeman. Apparently your psyc profile indicated you were suited for it.

But sarge … I sputtered.

Then he held his hand up to stop me and said, somewhat dismissively, Take it up with the chaplain.

I felt like someone had made me dig a latrine hole and jump in it. I sat on my bunk in an obvious clump of dejection, I was miserable. I came from soaring high with anticipation to crashing to the depths of despair. Shit! The chaplain couldn’t help me. But some of my buddies encouraged me to give it a try; they assured me that people didn’t get in trouble for going to the chaplain.

As I expected, the chaplain couldn’t (or wouldn’t) help me. Like it or not I was going to be an Air Force cop. Once I got over the mopping I focused on how could I get some advantage out of my assignment? My chance came toward the end of Tech School when the Air Force solicited our choices of where to be assigned. By now my Pollyanna tendencies were diminished but I decided to go for the gusto anyway. I thought that my grandfather’s lineage hailed from Germany so I put that as my first choice. Maybe they felt bad about stiffing me for linguistics but I doubt it, anyway I got my first choice. Hey! Maybe serving four years won’t be so bad after all; at least I’ll get to see some of the world.

The story that follows is based on my memories from my time in the U. S. Air Force, 50th Fighter Wing Air Police and mostly while in the K-9 Unit, at Hahn Air Base in West Germany. Whatever else I write here, I’m certain of at least one truth; I was stationed at Hahn Air Base between August 1961 and August 1964, assigned to security and then to the K-9 unit, life began when I became a ‘dog-man’. Being that this was in Germany, where I first encountered the art of drinking alcoholic beverages, sometimes it’s hard for me to distinguish fact from fantasy. German brewers make arguably the best beer in the world, they also make some pretty good wine and I discovered, while at Hahn Air Base, that I had a previously untested affinity for such drink. I tell you these things, as a preview, because it will help you to understand that much of what follows may be a bit suspect. I’ll try to be as accurate as possible but, at the end of the piece, you’ll get what you get. Some of this will be verified by sporadic entries that I made in a journal. I’ll tell you how bad it is; I didn’t even remember keeping a journal until I came across it recently while cleaning out some stuff and preparing for a reunion with some of the guys from my old unit in Germany. Still, the safest way to read this is to consider it a work of fiction even though it’s based upon my real life experiences. That way the innocent (and the not so innocent) are protected and there can be no efforts toward retroactive court-martials. There’s got to be a statute of limitation on that sort of thing anyway, right? Also, I’ve been advised that I should change the names of people for a number of reasons. One reason is that pesky ‘protecting the innocent’ thing that I mentioned. However, another and more important reason for me is to avoid anyone trying to sue me. I understand that a perfect defense to law suits for liable is to prove the facts but I’ve already admitted that some of my recollections are suspect and even where I have entries in my journal, those could be argued to be self-serving notes. So my apologies to my comrades who shared this Hahn Air Base experience but you may, if your memory is good enough and honest enough, recognize yourself and sort of relive the good times through this story, so here it is.

It was early morning on August 4, 1961, when Ed Baker, Mel Brian and I arrived at Rhine Mein Air Base, after about an eight hour flight from Cleveland, Ohio on an Air Force plane. We had gone through basic training and Air Police School together at Lackland Air Base and had all joined up in Cleveland, Ohio. We were met at Rhine Mein by a driver who was going to take us to Hahn Air Base by car. The roads were winding and at times went through mountains, with pretty steep drops down the slopes at the edges and with hairpin curves. Our driver, Airman First Class ‘Mario Andretti’, seemed to think it would be important for us to never forget the ride or maybe he had a hot date. None of us jeeps wanted to complain and look like we were scared but I’m fairly sure that the seats of that vehicle wound up with the permanent indentation of thirty fingers (or maybe more, if this guy had driven others before us to the base in this same fashion).

Hahn Air Base had probably been named that because of its close proximity to the German village, Hahn, even though the town of Lautzenhausen was just outside the main gate to the base or maybe the Air Force chose the name Hahn because the base was built partly on land that had been a part of Hahn village and, anyway, it would be harder to say ‘Lautzenhausen Air Base’. After being there a while I learned that it was reputed that the residents of Hahn village disliked American Air Force men. I suppose that the base taking land from their village could have contributed to that, if that was true.

We were instructed to report to the First Sergeant, as we staggered out of the vehicle, and were pointed in the direction of the building where his office was. We took our turns going through the protocol that we had been taught in basic. When it was my turn, I entered the Top’s office and stood at attention. Sir, Airman Bennett, Jerome D. reporting as ordered, Sir! I belted out. That’s me, Jerome D. Bennett or J.D. Bennett but my friends, family and familiars call me Jerry. In informal settings, that’s how I introduce myself. I was soon advised (or reminded) that I wasn’t supposed to call a non-commissioned officer (Sergeant) ‘Sir’.

When we reported in we found that they didn’t have assignments or rooms for us yet, so they put us in an empty room on the first floor of the barracks where the dog handlers were housed. (Dog handlers were also known as dog men or K-9 unit members and as the name probably implies, they worked posts with a dog partner.) The room we were assigned to was large with a door to the hallway on each end of it. As we were trying to set up cots and get organized, a guy came riding a bicycle in one door and as I recall singing some song. I don’t remember the song but I think he was singing. Maybe it was the rendition that was forgettable. He continued on and went out the other door. This took me rather by surprise because my parents were kind of strict about riding bicycles inside. At any rate as we stood there with our mouths agape, he came back down the hall and entered our temporary room again. This time he stopped to introduce himself and that’s when I first met Butler ‘Buddy’ Crocket. He was a very thin guy and not too tall, with a pale color to his face and a little red in his cheeks and a hawk like nose but he was outgoing and personable enough. I wasn’t sure what to make of him at that time. Was he a free spirit, a thug that was going to come back later to relieve us of our belongings, or just typical of a fun loving atmosphere in this place called, Hahn Air Base, 50th Air Police? I came to believe the later. Buddy told us that he was a descendant of Jefferson Davis or Davey Crocket, I don’t exactly remember which. At that time, I was still trying to figure out what was going on. At least, I concluded, he was trying to be friendly and not prone to referring to us as ‘jeeps’, which, of course, we were. (Jeep was the mocking term used by some to refer to new guys when they rotated in but that was OK because we figured we’d get our turn to see newer guys come to base and then we could refer to them as jeeps.)

The Air Force being the efficient machine that it is, we were soon all three of us assigned to Security B Flight (or Flight #2). I was assigned to a room where a guy name Dave Round was already living along with six other guys, I made the total eight in the room, and I began to get used to the term ‘jeep’. And here beginneth the journey that began to develop my personality and character and, influenced by some of these seasoned service men, taught me that I actually could hold my booze pretty well. Not right away because I did resist at first but some old hands (Dave Round and Steve Gary) took me under their wings at one point (which I’ll explain later) and demonstrated that my resistance was futile.

I started my tour at Hahn with every intention of taking advantage of the Air Forces generous offer to allow me some flexibility to attend classes at the University of Maryland, USAFE. This was great for me. I was not as fortunate as some of my high school classmates as far as being able to manage the cost of college but this promised to keep me from falling too far behind them, when I got out of the Air Force and returned to civilian life. So I managed to complete my first class in business administration with a C+ grade. Not the grade that I was used to but I found it a little tough getting started and doing my Air Police security work, which was two-thirds at night on rotating shifts. Not an excuse; just an explanation of my short-fall. The one favorable memory of that class was one test, which was an essay test, and I was especially unprepared. I hadn’t found proper time to study for it but I had read the material (quickly). So I did what any red blooded American student does; I tried to fake it. I wrote what I thought would be a sufficient amount to look like I knew the answers and was able to articulate them. Along with my C+ grade came a comment from the professor, written at the top of the paper in red ink. He said, Your answers were short on accuracy but, based on your responses, I would suggest that you consider becoming a writer. He probably had fiction in mind, when he wrote that comment.

I vowed to do better with my next course, which was American History. The professor set the tone for the course on the first night when he assigned a fair amount of home work and told us that he didn’t care if we had other things to do and that, if we were absent from his class more than once, he would fail us no matter the reason for our absence. Well OK, the Air Force said they would work with me to allow me to attend classes. Wrong! I think it was the next class, when I was on afternoon shift, that I was informed that I would not be let off to attend class because General Eugene M.Zuckert, Secretary of the Air Force was touring the base and we needed extra posts covered. That was absence number one in Professor Adolf’s class. Then a couple of class schedules later, Robert McNamara, Secretary of Defense was coming through on a tour and, again, we needed everybody on post. I decided that the prudent thing was to withdraw from the class and take an incomplete rather than an F grade.

[Let me be more honest here, my departure from the pursuit of my college education (intended to be only temporary at the time) was somewhat affected by the newly found party life that I discovered at Hahn and in Lautzenhausen and, eventually, in Europe. I gravitated toward a good time and succumbed to the weakness of the flesh. I’ll probably overwork this but I was a small town boy who had never been away from home before and away from the influence of parents and grandparents. Oh there was the time at Lackland Air Force Base for basic training and Air Police training but that was at least as controlled and disciplined as living in my parent’s house. As I said, I had good intentions of returning to my college studies but that didn’t happen until I was back in civilian life and embraced the responsibilities of a husband and potentially a father.]

2

It was still early in my time at Hahn and I tried to fill my off hours with things like reading, watching TV in the Day Room, shooting pool, playing ping pong, and playing cards. That was already getting boring when I got a letter from a girl I had met, when I was home on leave between training at Lackland Air Force Base and coming to Hahn. I lived in a small berg of a town along Lake Erie in northeastern Ohio but in the summertime it was big on