This was a pretty good week.
For one thing, there were more sunny days than cloudy, rainy days. The CG (Commanding General aka Commander)
wanted to head down to Rota Spain (there’s a Spanish/US Navy base there at the
entrance to the Mediterranean) to visit two of ‘his’ units there. Since part of my job is to establish/maintain
relations with different base commanders he wanted me along, of course no need
to twist my arm. More about Rota in a
minute – first a little bit about the base here in Stuttgart.
There are three main bases in the Stuttgart area; Panzer
Kazerne (where I am), Patch Barracks, and Kelley Barracks. Panzer Kazerne (German for Tank Base) and
Patch were both built in the 1930s with a special cobblestone ‘street’ designed
to withstand the weight of tanks linking the two bases. After WWII, US forces took over the bases but
kept most of the original buildings.
There’s supposed to be a large mural in the officer’s club but I haven’t
found that yet. Still, at least half the
roads on base are still cobblestone and at least one building still has
markings of the Nazi party.
Photo below – It looks like there was the swastika on the
square space just below the eagle’s claws but was removed.
Here’s a picture of the building I’m in – notice the nice
weather!
So, back to Rota. All
the military services have an allocation of passenger aircraft for use by
senior members, like generals. Depending
on the rank, the number of people travelling, and mission priority, these
aircraft get assigned. Most of the
planes are owned/staffed by Air Force, but maybe 1/3 are Navy, with just a
handful of Marine planes. The usual
aircraft we have is a C-12 which is a small twin-prop plane that seats about 6
small humans or large hobbits.
Unfortunately for us this week we didn’t get the C-12 but instead were
assigned a C-37.
Yeah, it’s a Gulfstream V.
These pictures aren’t the exact plane we flew, but it looks
like ours.
We all had a decent lunch and coffee that tasted like
coffee. If regular big airplanes are
busses with wings, this was like a Corvette.
Just plain fast – our cruising altitude was even higher than commercial
traffic. Did I mention fast? Two or three months ago one of the other
Marines took the C-12 to Rota and it took about 6 hours. The C-37 did it in 2 ½. As nice as all this was, the absolute best
part was avoiding all the human traffic in the terminal. Our vans went through the back gate to the
airport, drove right onto the tarmac, and we all just got on the plane. That’s it.
So the day we left Stuttgart was finally a beautiful sunny
day, and of course in Rota it was raining.
But it cleared up by the afternoon.
By late afternoon the sun finally poked through the clouds and I had a great
run in the salty Mediterranean air. The middle photo below shows some trees in the background. They're big shade trees that grow in clusters with lots of open space beneath, very beautiful.
Coming back the next day was on the same aircraft; just as
easy, just as quick, just as nice.
What else….. I got a
bicycle. There’s a fair amount of
constant personnel turnover and one thing that gets handed down are
bicycles. The Intel section had offered
it to me, originally purchased by someone I think two years ago. It had been left in the rain so the chain and
gears had some rust but with a little silicon spray it works ok. Kind of.
It’s a real beater bike and riding home the other day I discovered both
wheels are bent just a bit, the front set of gears need some adjusting, and
both tires are worn. But it’s free and
it’s fine for daily commuting.
