Posted on May 9, 2016
MSgt Richard Rountree
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Of my 20 year career in the USAF, I spent 12.5 years in Europe helping to keep the Commie Horde on their side of the Fulda Gap. I saw and participated in a lot of strange 'activities' both on and off duty. Let's hear your tales from the dark side...what did you do in the Cold War?
Posted in these groups: Coldwar Cold War
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Capt Seid Waddell
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It wasn't my experience, but that of my boss who had gone to West Berlin on business during the cold war. He said that an East German civilian had driven his truck through the fence and escaped to the West.

The East Germans sent a crew to repair the fence, but they too escaped to the West. The East Germans then sent another crew to repair the fence, but this time they sent several guards to accompany them. The workmen and the guards all escaped to the West.

Finally, the East Germans sent another crew and a large detachment of soldiers with orders to shoot to kill if anyone tried to escape. That crew fixed the fence.
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SGT Kyle Johnson
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Going into east Berlin in full class A uniform. We would ride a bus and on every corner they would have someone, sweeping or repairing a light, but counting the number of us on the bus. So we would have one or two get down low on a turn. Was funny to see the next guy counting frantically so they knew we were all there. They would finally stop the bus and come on to tell us something and you could see the guy counting again. We would do this all day at every stop for something they had us tour. They just seemed to be panicked if the count was wrong.
Not so fun was the duty train, they would stop it over and over during the night and check all our paperwork and get a head count.
So many cool and interesting things happened.. Did everything from running the Fulda Gap as a Combat engineer to then going MI and being in Berlin till the fall of the wall.
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MSgt Richard Rountree
MSgt Richard Rountree
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I have a few East Berlin stories I'm writing up for this thread. Berlin in the 1980s was a really interesting place to visit or be stationed.
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SGT John " Mac " McConnell
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Stationed in Germany was fun duty. many times we setup in the Fulda gap area. The times I remember was on patrol near the Gap. Thus our patrol was to report vehicles going in and out. But, That got Boring so we went for a closer look. Ended up humping a bunch of Beer back to our platoon area.. Fun times !
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