Gemini Rising

Reflections of my time stationed overseas - Munster

My first duty assignment, fresh after graduating Basic and 95B (military police) training, was the 583rd Ordnance Company. I arrived in Germany in December of 1986, 18 years old and ready to discover the world. I wish I paid more attention.

My fellow MPs landed at the Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt, Germany. While my memory is now fuzzy, I do remember our original set of orders were scrapped and we were given new orders to go to the 583rd Ordnance Company.

The 583rd Ordnance Company was located just outside of the suburb of Handorf and the city of Munster. It was in the British Zone of Occupation. I had some history classes in high school and I was aware that Germany had been divided by the allies, but until I was stationed in the British Zone of occupation, it wasn’t real to me.

The British zone of occupation in Germany was north of Frankfurt up to Bremerhaven. The American zone was south of Frankfurt and the French had a small piece near the German-French border.

Where I was stationed at there were 10,000 British soldiers and 200 American soldiers. Out of the 20 American soldiers maybe 20 were female. What were the odds?

Munster, itself has about 320,000 people. It is in the Nord-Rhine Westphalia section of Germany. I do remember the Cathedral, and the town itself was an interesting mix of gothic and Romanesque architecture. I do remember it there were a lot of gables on the buildings in downtown, and I think there was a heavy Dutch influence in the area. When I had time (and my 1975 Fiat was working, I might go to the downtown area to walk around, eat authentic German food, and take some friends just to get out, though most Americans weren’t as daring to leave our kaserne.)

Genealogy side note – 30 year later, when I submitted a sample to 23 and me, I learned that about 5 % of my ancestry is from Nord-Rhine Westphalia. I have a 2nd or 3rd great grandparent likely born between 1760 and 1850 from Nord-Rhine Westphalia. In hindsight, I found it amazing that I would live in this region for 2 years of my life in the military. I suspect this great grandparent came from my paternal side, my father’s mother, as I remember her telling me, she wasn’t sure of her lineage. A couple of months back, my husband got on ancestry.com and was able to trace my grandmother’s mother line back to Germany.

Back to Munster & the 583rd: Most of the company’s immediate support was British. You had your options – British TV or German TV. For immediate health or dental issues you could go to the British hospital or dentist. Most of the time, us Americans went to Bremerhaven for medical/dental issues. Bremerhaven was a 2 hour drive north. That was the closest American base. I remember there were American facilities in Enschede, Netherlands – I got my USAREUR driver’s license there. It only took an hour and half to get there. For the life of me, I couldn’t remember if it was an “American” base. An internet search now reveals it was a jointly used air base between the Americans and the Dutch.

We had to gas up our vehicles on British kasernes in the area. I remember vaguely going to Simpson, York, Portsmouth barracks to fuel up our VW. If anything, I wish I could remember more. I think the Brits called it petrol and us Americans said gas.

Every year the British would have an open house and invite us Americans to put on a display. I want to say the open house rotated every year, but I can’t be sure, however every year I was voluntold to participate in the open house. Being an MP, I had to wear my BDU (battle dress uniform) along with my personal equipment, LBE (load bearing equipment), my kelvar helmet, have my gas mask attached on my hip, and bring along my M16. What made my M16 so special at the time, is that it had an M203 grenade launcher on it. Mind you, a grenade launcher is really cool to fire, but I never shot it once while I was at the 583rd. (I eventually shot it and qualified expert on it when I was assigned to the 127th MP Company in Hanau.) I also had to wear camo on my face. I was full all out decked out for war fighting. I remember our presentation at the open houses were well received and we got a lot of questions – especially me.

At the time, being an MP was probably the closest a woman would come to war fighting. Being an MP was considered combat support. There was combat (infantry for example), combat support, (MP), and combat service support (cooks and clerks). I would get a lot of questions from British soldiers about “what was it like” to be a female in a job like I had. They would explain to me that most of their females were in combat service support jobs like cooks, clerks, nurses, etc. They considered me to be a war fighter. Why would I want to do it? I would explain that (at the time) the American didn’t have females in combat jobs, but we could serve in combat support jobs. I had to have a lot of patience because I got that a lot!

British BDUs were different from ours in that they had different camo patterns on them, but the one thing I admired about their equipment was their MOPP gear (Mission Orientated Protective Posture) MOPP is what you put on to protect yourself in case of an NBC attack (nuclear, biological, chemical). We had 9 seconds to put on our face mask and 9 minutes to put on the suit. In American MOPP suits, you had to tie everything off and tying slowed you down. The British suits had Velcro. Easy Peasy! Not only that they had screw on exterior filters! Convenient! Our filters were interior in the face plastic. They were hard to replace.

Every year us Americans would go on a joint exercise with the Brits called Reforger. For us, it was a “practice.” We would “unload” the munitions site and then travel throughout the countryside guarding our munitions. The British would drive in their deuce and halfs (2 ½ ton trucks) with the “munitions” (they were simulated) and the American would ride shotgun. Usually the exercise lasted about a week or a week and half. We usually got hot meals for dinner and breakfast, but lunch usually consisted of rations. American MREs sucked next to British rations. They actually got stuff in cans that they had to cook!

A “quick” internet search (I’d have to do a bit more research) revealed that during World War II, Munster was a site for chemical weapons research and production for the German military. (I never knew!) Munster had a prominent German military presence in World War II and was a bombing target of the British. (It was 95% destroyed?) (Heck, I remember hearing in the news they had found an unexploded bomb near the cathedral in 1988.) To this day, they are still finding unexploded ordnance in Germany from World War II.

If anything, this is a just a brief collection of my thoughts and memories during my time stationed at the 583rd. I'll probably take some time and flesh it out a bit more going forward.

I'd love to hear more thoughts on the British army, so if anyone has anything share, please do.