BULGE

General George Patton fought to win at the Battle of the Bulge in the Schnee Eiffel, where I was stationed at a supposedly secret RADAR site.  After that battle, the landscape, which before the war was lush with forest, now was almost empty of greenery.

My buddies and I would go for walks along trails that survived the bombing and sometimes visited the insides of devastated bomb shelters, some of which were filled with water, possibly hiding skeletons.  We did find rusted machine guns here and there.

Nobody warned us that there were still active landmines near where we walked.  We learned that later.  yes, we were lucky.

My cousin Earl survived the battle and did not like to talk about it.

Two events occurred while I was stationed on the mountain that might be of interest:

01. THE UFO. 

One of my early jobs was to operate direction finding equipment to help pilots.  I was called "Barber Foxtrot," and I was able to communicate directly with those pilots.

One night, I heard a group of guys observing some kind of vehicle circling them.  They were scared and one pilot even began to recite The Rosary.

Another pilot called me directly and told me to look up because the UFO had left them and was now hovering directly over my station.

I hurried out of my van and looked up into the amazing star-filled sky only seen from on top of a mountain.  I was disappointed for I did not see that strange vehicle.  Shortly, everything became normal again and I never heard anything more.

02.  THE SPY

One frosty afternoon, an Army Major showed up at the base gate.  This was a secret RADAR installation, and nobody was allowed on the base without a bunch of official paperwork.  The Major produced paperwork and was waved in after signing his name on the VIP roster.

The Major then went off alone, visiting places on the base that were "off limits" to everyone except those whose rating was Colonel or higher.

When the day shift was over, the new "Gate Tender" casually checked the VIP roster and saw that the Army Major had signed it: I.M.A.SPY.

The whole base was put on high alert and everybody was tasked with playing "Where's Major!"

After a couple of hours, he was found hiding behind a gigantic snow drift, happily writing in his Army-issue notebook.  He had been officially checking out our base safeguards, which we had failed to adhere to.     

Here is residue from Hitler's glorious Third Reich.

It could happen here!

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Go, and spy no more.