Fulda Gap East German Border Towns Vacha Philippsthal

[577fred1]

wlh1usa- I read your comment about the Fulda Gap. I served in Bad Hersfeld from 1967 to 1969. I know more now about the border now than I did when I was over there thanks to this website. I was not at the border very much, I was at the kasserne mostly, but I have heard a lot of stories about border duty. I liked your comment  577fred1

[wlh1usa]

goosebumps, i was in the 94th engineers out of Darmstadt ( 1978-1981 ) we /i was tdy in wildflecken for 22 months out of the 33 i was in Germany, i will never forget those times, the life expectancy for out whole battalion was less than 20 minutes, our job was to dig tank traps to try to slow the russians from pouring into west Germany thru the Fulda gap, it was scarry times, i had more than one mig fly ober me in the 5 ton dump truck i drove, plus a fer cobras from our side

[theDeitz]

@wlh1usa Goosebumps I understand ;-} Do you know about wildfleckenveterans com web page?

So many GI that were there did not know about the less than 20 minutes part. Guess they didn't want to spook us ... lol now, not then. Thanks for sharing your story thedeitz com

[ghiaclock]

I remember one night a deer ran into the fence ,setting off an explosion.The response time by the east Germans was no more than 5 mins.Since we had no ammo to speak of,we were very cordial when they arrived! Keep those memories coming Dietz!

[theDeitz]

Great story, as you know we were recon, a speed bump. If they crossed the border life expectancy was 20 minuets for us. All larger units were located farther into Germany, this would give them time to mobilize and to get NATO units on the move. BTY: we had nukes back at the base in Hersfeld ;)

[POZ48]

Very interesting.

[theDeitz]

Hey! per my records/information you were a part of this Cold War ;)