In my life I have done a lot of things, gone to a lot of
places, seen some amazing sights and made some great friends. Many times I have failed, but many other
times I have succeeded. Among the
proudest moments of my life are the years I spent serving in the Army in the
56th Field Artillery Command as a Pershing soldier and crewman. I can’t even express how proud I am to have
served with some of the best men and women our country has to offer and how
blessed I feel to have endured, survived and prospered.
I could tell
you about endless guard duty, no sleep, mud, freezing nights under the stars
putting up cammo nets, preparing for a terrorist attack and many other things
that stand out in my mind today. But, the most important things that I learned in the military were that the
seemingly impossible can get done, difficulties are simply challenges to
overcome and friendship and teamwork are the most valuable possessions any
person could ever have.
It is with
these thoughts that I contemplate the passing of a few friends, some in the
middle east and some here at home. I
salute all of them, as well as all the men and women who serve in our military
today. I truly wish that everyone could
have the inside view that I have of the real US military, not the one we read
about in the papers or hear about on TV.
On that
note, I would like to share a great article written by a fellow Pershing
soldier, Robert Martin. Robert served under the same command I did, ten years
earlier than me, and he has captured the essence of the experience and provided
some excellent historical perspective. Thank
you, Robert and thank you to all of my friends from the 56th FA Command in
Germany and Ft. Sill, Oklahoma. Mission
accomplished.
Here’s the article:
We Gave Peace a Chance
In the closing years of the
1960’s, I was a university student. Like all students, I was aware of the conflict
raging in Southeast Asia, but I was focused on my schooling and the adventure of
starting my adult life, so I was not troubled. It was not until the spring of
1971 that I realized fully that young men might still be asked to serve their
country, possibly in dangerous places in the world. When I received my notice
from the Selective Service, I did some research and found that if I chose the
right MOS, I might be spared participation in a shooting war and might instead
be sent someplace “peaceful.” With that in mind, I enlisted in the US Army for
a three year term and chose the MOS of Pershing Missile Crewman. I endured
Basic Combat Training at Fort
Campbell KY,
living in barracks vacated by the 101st Airborne Division, who were
then in Vietnam. I then went on to Ft. Sill OK for my Pershing training at
the Field Artillery Training Center there. It was only then that I began to understand the
mission of the US Army in Europe, and it’s commitment to the defense of the western way of
life.
When I arrived in Germany in the summer of 1972, I had no idea what to expect. The
United States was trying to achieve an honorable resolution in Vietnam, where
the last ground troops were preparing to leave, and the draft was winding down
to a projected 50,000 for all of ’72. I knew that there was a long-standing US military presence in Europe where
I was headed, but had little understanding of what it meant.
I quickly learned that although
the US still had a strong and enduring commitment to the defense
of Europe, they had committed 10 year’s worth of emphasis and
resources on the conflict in Vietnam. What I found in Germany was aging equipment and worn out facilities. My unit fielded
vehicles that had been made during the Korean War, 20 years earlier. The
physical facilities were in many cases dilapidated relics of WWII and in dire
need of repair. Among the troops a somewhat less than vivid understanding of
why we were there. Such was the Cold
War, as I entered it in 1972.
The Cold War, to most Americans, appears to be a remote and distant
period having something to do with ICBMs, submarines, and the Berlin Wall. The history
in schoolbooks says little about it. Even popular slick pictorial histories
written today tend to gloss over and minimize the events. One such recent publication
seems to suggest that the US Army participated in WWII, Korea,
Vietnam and Grenada
and the Gulf War, while only a page or two was devoted to the ongoing
continental European conflict that lasted from 1945 until 1991. Even then, the
pictures shown are the usual ones; the Berlin Wall and the Soviet army parades
in Red Square being reviewed by grim-faced Soviet
officials.
What goes unacknowledged in the pages of books and the minds
of Americans today is the arduous service of hundreds of thousands of Americans
in military posts large and small throughout Europe for
almost 5 decades. Without their service, the Soviet Union
would probably not have been brought to the bargaining table, communism might
not have collapsed, and the western world would not be the one we live in
today.
Going back to the 40’s
At the end of WWII the US Army found itself occupying a
defeated Germany,
and facing a dubious ally in the east. As the work of rebuilding Europe
under the Marshall Plan got underway, many units simply took over former
military installations built and used by the defeated Germans. Names like Bismark
Kaserne, Merrill Barracks, Goeppingen, Hohenfels and Grafenworh are a few among
the many names of places where three generations of American soldiers served.
Installations that were once used by the German Wermacht became the homes US
Army units for decades on end. Some installations saw a succession of units
housed there which reflected the change in weapons and military philosophies.
The Army in Europe
As the mission in Europe changed over
the years, so did the weapons and the tactics by which they were used. The
direction in which they faced, however, never changed. Attention always focused
east toward what were considered to be the logical invasion routes to be used
by the Warsaw Pact, the Fulda and Hof Gaps on the border between east and west
Germany and the heavily fortified Czech border. Technological changes brought a
succession of new weapons, from the M1 rifle of the 1940’s to the M-16 of the
70’s and 80’s. Also present was a succession of guided missile systems, each
designed to be more accurate, more powerful and longer ranging than its
predecessor. From the early days of Corporal, Sergeant and Redstone missiles,
technology and research brought forth Hawk, Honest John, Pershing, and the Lance
missiles. Each had a distinct mission in the theater, and each was represented
and served by hundreds of trained servicemen and women. These thousands of
veterans are thought by many to have been given an “easy” tour, when in fact the
tour of duty was arduous to the soldiers and critical to the nation.
The US Army never felt as though it had been defeated in Vietnam,
but at the same time there was certainly no “flush of victory” among the men
and officers being reassigned from there or from stateside posts. Low moral was
a severe problem, as were the drugs that seemed to be everywhere in the 70s.
Among the lower enlisted ranks at least, the defense of democracy meant far
less than the desire to go home. Reenlistment NCOs had the daunting task of
retaining trained soldiers, who clearly understood that “re-upping” meant more
service in the same dreary posts. Many of the officers felt their careers were grinding
to a halt.
To make matters even worse, in 1973 the US Dollar was
devalued against the West German Deutschmark, and suddenly everyone’s income
was cut nearly in half. Many families were sent back to the states, simply
because it was too expensive to remain. Those that remained were among the poorest
people in Germany.
The standing joke in the town where I was stationed was that it had two slums: the two US Army Kasernes.
But the soldiers “soldiered on”. Through the tough tours,
separated from family, the extended stays at Grafenworhr or Hohenfels ranges,
the soldiers endured. There were month-long stays at CAS (Combat Alert Status)
sites for missile battalions and endless road marches and tactical problems for
armored units, who drove tanks and armored vehicles requiring almost endless
maintenance. There were experiences with strange experimental equipment, such
as the ill-conceived “Gamma Goat”, the Shillelagh missile -firing M60A2 tanks (mockingly
nicknamed “Starships” by the soldiers because of their technical complexity and
frequent breakdowns) and the XM551 Sheridan tank, which were so mistrusted by the
soldiers who used them in Vietnam
that they rode outside on the hull
whenever possible.
Soldiers prepared for the worst, training in fallout
prediction, decontamination procedures and poison gas defense, trying to learn
to survive on what was all but promised
to them: the nuclear battlefield.
None of this was “peace” the way many understood it, it was
an almost-shooting war. In a very real sense it nearly became one when all of
USAEUR was thrown on to full alert status on October 6th 1973, at the outset of the Yom
Kippur War between Egypt
and Syria and Israel
in the Middle East. It has always been feared that such
a conflict might spill over into southeastern Europe. With that in mind, we were “loaded out,” everything
necessary was packed, and everything mission non-essential was to be abandoned
or destroyed. The message to stand-down did not come for over a week. We were
scared, but we were ready to go.
I once described that time to a Marine Vietnam veteran
friend, who asked me how anyone could endure such an event. “At least in Vietnam
the action had a beginning and an end. For you, there was only the beginning.”
And so it was, the beginning of conflict, over and over. We trained for what might
just be, for us, the unsurvivable war. The troops in Europe
knew what the mission was; to buy time for the western nations to fully
mobilize and react to a Soviet invasion. To those of us in Pershing, it was
called “Fire and Fry”, because we knew that by the time we got our rounds
fired, our adversaries’ missiles would be headed back at us.
In the 1970’s, the US Army struggled with the low morale and
lack of resources resulting from the emphasis on the Vietnam War. In the 1980’s
they endured protest movements and agitation at the very gates of the posts
where they were stationed. The protests were generated by improvements in the
Pershing Missile system, bringing about far greater capabilities than Pershing
previously had in terms of range and accuracy. But these increased capabilities
resulted in the talks that resulted in the INF treaty in 1987. The INF brought about the elimination of an
entire class of medium-range missiles including the Soviet SS-20 and the
Pershing II.
This “cold” war went on in Europe
from 1945 until 1991, when the Soviet Union finally
abandoned their territorial ambitions and collapsed, a period of 46 years which,
in the minds of many Americans, merits only a footnote. In the minds of the
many veterans who added their service to that huge, unsung effort, they can take
satisfaction in the knowledge that they helped create a better world.
Those who served during that time are thought of today as
either peacetime/non-combat veterans, or in some cases, “Vietnam Era veterans”
as though the Cold War did not actually take place. For myself, I do not lay
claim to any association with that shooting war, or of the honor gained by the
brave men and women who served in Vietnam.
By the same token I do not think for a moment that that period should be
labeled “peace.”
In April of 1999 Secretary of Defense William S. Cohen
approved the issuance of a Cold War Recognition Certificate to those who served
in the armed force or Federal civilian agencies during the period of Sept 1945
to December of 1991. The press release stated that “from the end of WWII until
the collapse of the Soviet Union in 1991, the United States and the Soviet
Union engaged in a global military rivalry,” and acknowledges the “Many
...personnel performed their duties while isolated from family and friends and
served overseas under frequently arduous conditions in order to protect the
United States and achieve a lasting peace.” The Cold War Recognition
Certificate is a step in the right direction in acknowledging what the Cold War
actually was.
There are many who believe that the CWRC program doesn’t go
far enough, and that a Cold War Service Medal should be issued. In the Defense
Authorization Act of 2002, Congress recommended that the Secretary of Defense
consider the issuance of a Cold War Service Medal. In October of ‘02 however,
the Secretary of Defense declined to authorize the Cold War Service Medal, and
pointed to the Certificate as being enough. The battle will continue.
I haven’t worn the uniform since 1974 after my three years
were served, so a Cold War Service Medal would only be added to my box of remembrances.
Instead I would like to see an increased awareness of what the Cold War was and
how important winning it was to the survival of our nation and the western way
of life. Most importantly, call us what we are, Cold War Veterans. Among the
Pershing Missile veterans there is a motto: “We Gave Peace a Chance.”
Robert D. Martin
served in the U.S. Army on active duty from January of 1972 to December of 1974. He was
assigned to Service Battery, 1st Battalion, 41st Field
Artillery (Pershing) in Schwaebisch Gmuend, Federal Republic of Germany. I served in the same command from 1985 to
1988, although I was assigned to bases in Neckarsulm and Heilbronn, first in the Headquarters Ammo platoon and
later in the 1rst Firing platoon of Alpha Battery. Our Battalion was the 3rd Battalion, 84th FA
and later 4th Battalion, 9th FA. All Pershing
units were under the 56th FA command. You
can see the Pershing missiles and some of the equipment we used if you visit
the Smithsonian Museum in Washington DC.
