Cold War Memories

[George Wallace]

Army Group sized Exercises that covered all of Germany.  Driving tanks up the autobahn in the middle of the night.  Parking in people's driveways and camming up.  OPs in barns and towers.  Having a "real" enemy.  Tank Trains.  Convoys on the Autobahn.  Fast Air skimming the treetops.  A-10s circling like vultures.  Americans having no Voice Discipline on their Nets. 

 

[vonGarvin]

Was in Lahr in '78 as a part of a fly-over troop attached to the RCD.  After seeing bases in Canada with nice white buildings with green trim etc, and flying into Lahr with the dull green buildings, bunkers, wire etc was sobering....

Funny you mention that.  I noticed that too when I first flew into Lahr in August, 1982.

 

[George Wallace]

Funny you mention that.  I noticed that too when I first flew into Lahr in August, 1982.

Around 1994, some brainiac in the Coriano Club Mess Committee had the main lounge painted in that colour of green..........Brought back memories..........Flashbacks.  Not exactly the best colour for the Mess though.

 

[wildman0101]

Snowball,Snowball,Snowball. You treated it as actual. Considering we had the Warsaw pact
sitting right in front of us. Poland,Checslovakia,Hugary,Romania,Comunist East Germany,
Sheesh,,,, then if we survived that onslaught, F/n Russian troop's coming right on thier
heel's,,,,,,I remember waking to a call of nature one morning 0200 hrs dark-time and
heard Snowball,,Snowball,Snowball.... And my heart jumping up my throat. Then again
Scoty B
P.S. The first thing Sgt Cheeseman taught me,,,
Allways be prepared for the un-exspected .
Because if you dont your dead.
Jim was a proud member of the Fort Garry Horse. and he knew his S@@@!

 

[Occam]

But, if you have a Spätlze recipe from a German from Lahr.......next time I'm near Kingston, I'm hitting you up for some.  I haven't had real Spätzle in YEARS.  I have had that "Spazzel" (as they mis-pronounce it here), but it's nothing like the real deal.


EDIT TO ADD: "Spätzle" is pronounced "Shpetzlee"  ;D

I worked at a German restaurant during my teen years, and spent my Saturday afternoons making spätzle (pronounced "shpetzluh" by the owner) for the week.  If you want the recipe, here you go:

5 flats of eggs
~16 cups of flour (adjust for texture)
1/4 cup salt (to taste)

Mix all ingredients and knead by hand until thoroughly mixed.  Put dough through a spätzle press into boiling water.  Skim off spatzle when it floats to surface.  Drain and serve.

Sorry about the quantity....it's the only batch size I ever made.  ;D

It's really good exercise for the pecs, although you'd never know it by looking at me now...

 

[armyvern]

I worked at a German restaurant during my teen years, and spent my Saturday afternoons making spätzle (pronounced "shpetzluh" by the owner) for the week.  If you want the recipe, here you go:

5 flats of eggs
~16 cups of flour (adjust for texture)
1/4 cup salt (to taste)

Mix all ingredients and knead by hand until thoroughly mixed.  Put dough through a spätzle press into boiling water.  Skim off spatzle when it floats to surface.  Drain and serve.

Sorry about the quantity....it's the only batch size I ever made.  ;D

It's really good exercise for the pecs, although you'd never know it by looking at me now...

Holy crap!! That is enough to feed a Cold war Army!!  ;D

 

[wildman0101]

ocht spatzle .... das vas sahr goot. Danke mein fruend..
Salute.

 

[Occam]

Memories of the Cold War:

Tearing a flash message off the Mod 28 and flashing up a transmitter and receiver to "phone home"...

Fighting over the "Big Eyes" to look at a Sovremenny or Krivak in the distance during a Northern Wedding.

 

[Occam]

Holy crap!! That is enough to feed a Cold war Army!!  ;D

A week's worth for a very popular restaurant, anyways.  It does keep well!  ;D

 

[daftandbarmy]

Defending nuclear cruise missiles (heavily armed with binoculars, radios and pick handles) at Greenham Common from rampaging lesbians so that the heavily armed US Air Force security troops protecting the former didn't gun down the latter, who were continually trying to break into the compounds so they could get shot by the former and make a point. Good thing that the RAF Regiment were always holding part of the perimeter 'cause they left us alone and always broke through there. I always thought of it as a little 'girl on girl' action.

Speaking of which, the only good part about that gig was watching them 'recreate' at night in their Blair-wirtch-project-like-tents, through our the triple apron barbed wire, using 2nd generation II scopes.  ;D

 

[armyvern]

Speaking of which, the only good part about that gig was watching them 'recreate' at night in their Blair-wirtch-project-like-tents, through our the triple apron barbed wire, using 2nd generation II scopes.  ;D

Nothing beats free entertainment!! Too funny. 

 

[vonGarvin]

I worked at a German restaurant during my teen years, and spent my Saturday afternoons making spätzle (pronounced "shpetzluh" by the owner) for the week.  If you want the recipe, here you go:

5 flats of eggs
~16 cups of flour (adjust for texture)
1/4 cup salt (to taste)

Mix all ingredients and knead by hand until thoroughly mixed.  Put dough through a spätzle press into boiling water.  Skim off spatzle when it floats to surface.  Drain and serve.

Sorry about the quantity....it's the only batch size I ever made.  ;D

It's really good exercise for the pecs, although you'd never know it by looking at me now...

Mmmmm.....


(WRT how to pronounce it, it's hard to type out how some sausage-eating Allemanner would spurt out that word through an Alpirsbacher! ;D)

Another one for me.  This was in Canada ~1985 as a Private Soldier in The Hastings and Prince Edward Regiment on exercise.  The "enemy" force was always from the "1st Guards Tank Division", and they were Soviets, not "Fantasians" or "Granovians".

 

[Old Sweat]

Being (quite) a bit older, my first real impression of the Cold War was the look on my mother's face when word came that North Korea had invaded the South. Other memories include the Hungarian Revolution and its crushing by the Soviets, the launch of Sputnik, the space race with failed launch after failed launchv by NASA, the Cuban Missile Crisis and the assassination of JFK.

I then served in 4 CIBG 1964-1967 and can confirm we took it seriously. At that time the brigade had a strength of just over 6000, not including the 3rd and 4th line logistics organizations. We were to be employed as a brigade in 2nd British Division under nuclear conditions, so our training included nuclear and chemical defence and tactics as per Canadian Army Manual of Training 1-8, The Brigade Group in Battle, Part I - Tactics and Canadian Army Manual of Training 1-11, Part II - Administration. There also was a procedure in place to evacuate the dependents back to Canada, which was a real comfort to the troops. As a friend of mine put it, "we were expected to go off to battle, leaving our wives and kids in the hands of the DND teachers and the officers the COs did not want to take to war."

I won't get into the AMF(L) and the CAST Brigade, as that era is being covered by others. Suffice to say, I know my way around large hunks of North Norway.

p.s. Our version of Snowball was Quick Train.

 

[mariomike]

I remember a couple of stories told to me by one of our EMO guys back in the 1970's. Just after EMO ended. He said a false warning of an impending nuclear attack had been accidentally broadcast across the United States a few years before. Real "War of the Worlds" stuff. A technician at NORAD mistakenly broadcast the nuke message ( with a code word ), instead of the regular test message.
I remember the test messages. 
He also mentioned that there was not a widespread panic, because it was not taken seriously by most stations, they stayed on the air, and there was also a mechanical failure of some kind to some news media networks. That it was sort of a good thing, in a way, because it exposed some weaknesses in both the US and Canada.
Apparently, it took them almost an hour to cancel the false alarm, while they hunted for the cancellation code word.
He said that would be unlikely to happen in Canada, because the "no duff" message was kept under lock and key at North Bay ( or Ottawa? ). He also said that EMO - Canada could not broadcast a true attack warning between midnight and 0600 hrs., because most CBC stations would be shut down during those hours!

The other story I heard was even more bizzare about a parachute club in Don Mills, in the 1960's, ready to "jump into action" in case they "dropped the big one", or some other disaster.

 

[Spanky]

Taking a Combat Int crse in '85 and coming to realize the size of the Warsaw Pact force facing NATO and thinking "Holy F***!  We're screwed!". 
I do miss the bratwurst with the hot mustard on a little paper plate and the fresh brochen(sp).  Went well with a litre of pilsner.

 

[mariomike]

Here we go. Bound to trigger some flashbacks memories. I remember NORAD tracking Santa Claus from the North Pole. Maybe they still do?

This is the test message:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=6YRHAro1iTE&feature=related

This is the false alarm. ( They interupted The Partridge Family! ):
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Yu4r79l8P8I

Edit to add:
Chicago:
"I was absolutely terrified. It was so authentic. I just knew we were at war and the President would come on and say what had happened.":
http://conelrad.blogspot.com/2010/09/code-word-hatefulness-great-ebs-scare.html

Groucho Marx offers A-Bomb survival tips:
http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=h31xJhOP85c

 

[Occam]

Here we go. Bound to trigger some flashbacks memories. I remember NORAD tracking Santa Claus from the North Pole. Maybe they still do?

Hell, Santa and NORAD have been on the web for years...

http://www.noradsanta.org/

 

[dangerboy]

One of my memories is getting ready to go on my reserve Infantry course in the summer of 89 and the word came down that they were taking people for the fall ex.  I believe it was part of EX REFORGER (if not I am sure somebody on here will correct me ;D).  What they did was take the one platoon of unqualified soldiers and ran an Infantry course for them while the rest of us were in the other Pl doing an Infantry course also.  It was more or less the same as our course with the one exception, they had the new weapons (C7s & C9s) and they were trained on them and we were using the FNs.  While I could not care less about the C7, I liked the C1 the C9 was an object to be desired especially over the C2.  I was tempted to put my name in for the exercise but I was still in school and could not justify missing 2 months of school to train in Germany.  I thought there will be other exercises and I will just put my name in again.  I did not know at the time this would be one of the last chances if not the very last chance to deploy and Germany and receive some invaluable training.

 

[George Wallace]

1990 was the last big "Fall Ex" for 4 CMBG and 1 Can Div.  There was no REFORGER that year, as it was the new reunified Germany's first election.  Canada was the only nation to hold a "Fall Ex" that year. 

 

[vonGarvin]

One of my memories is getting ready to go on my reserve Infantry course in the summer of 89 and the word came down that they were taking people for the fall ex.  I believe it was part of EX REFORGER (if not I am sure somebody on here will correct me ;D).  What they did was take the one platoon of unqualified soldiers and ran an Infantry course for them while the rest of us were in the other Pl doing an Infantry course also.  It was more or less the same as our course with the one exception, they had the new weapons (C7s & C9s) and they were trained on them and we were using the FNs.  While I could not care less about the C7, I liked the C1 the C9 was an object to be desired especially over the C2.  I was tempted to put my name in for the exercise but I was still in school and could not justify missing 2 months of school to train in Germany.  I thought there will be other exercises and I will just put my name in again.  I did not know at the time this would be one of the last chances if not the very last chance to deploy and Germany and receive some invaluable training.

I was a section commander in that "other" platoon