 Right now, on top of a tower somewhere, a man is on guard, watching for smoke, working for you, protecting your forests. The danger is real and constant. The possible damage, great. It's a necessary, hazardous job, and happily, there are men willing to do it. Here too, men stand guard, ready for action on a moment's notice. These people too are working for you. 24 hours a day they must be ready to fight the fire that could destroy your property, everything you own. When this kind of emergency arises, the skills and equipment needed to deal with it must be ready. There's no time to get ready afterward. We make laws by which to live, but law without authority is no law. So these men too are working for you, upholding these laws, guarding you against crime. Here, still another man stands guard. As his general orders put it, keeping always on the alert and observing everything that takes place within sight or hearing. This man and others like him are working for you too, and for themselves, since what they are guarding belongs equally to us all. Less tangible than forests or property, but in the end, far more important. They guard our freedom. This post is somewhere in Germany overlooking a sector of the Iron Curtain. Over there behind Barbed Wire Barriers is a captive country, a Soviet satellite. It's a lonely post, but this man is far from alone in his job. Some miles away, in an impressive complex of buildings, is the headquarters of the Army organization of which he is a part. The location is Heidelberg, Germany. The headquarters, that of the United States Army in Europe. USERER, and this is part one of the USERER story. The Army presents The Big Picture, an official report produced for the armed forces and the American people. At USERER headquarters, an officer takes a moment during a busy day to examine a new information poster. It is one in which he has a particular interest. We'll let him tell you why himself. For 40 years, this man has been my vocation and avocation. Welcome to the United States Army in Europe, which we call USERER. I will explain shortly what that means. But first, my name is Bruce Clark. I'm a general, a general in your Army. I have not always been a general, for in fact, I started as a private in 1918. I'm speaking to you from my desk in Heidelberg, Germany. I am the commander-in-chief of your soldier son, your soldier husband, your soldier father, and my soldier son, too. Our loved ones in Europe. I am speaking for them because I think I know how they feel. They are proud over here in a foreign country. First, because they are Americans. Secondly, because they're a country. Second, because they're a country. Third, because they're a country. We have an enemy over here who is threatened to engulf us, who is only waiting, alert, ready for that one moment, that we let our guard down. Your loved one is here as one of those guards. As a soldier, he is proud that he's part of the greatest peace time ever assembled by our country in numbers and firepower and weapons and equipment, in might. It is a might that each night we sincerely hope that we shall never have to use, for we of the United States are a lawful nation, a peace-loving nation. But let the enemy make no mistake, we are ready. You have seen to that by giving us the United States Army in Europe. Usurer is something the public, you know too little about. This is a report to you on Usurer, the United States Army in Europe. Sit back and let us show you a power mass of proficiency and strength such that the world has seldom seen and hope with us that it will never be used. Heidelberg, tiny, ancient, peaceful. There is a quiet, contemplative sense of things here. And well, there might be. The University of Heidelberg had already been a center of learning for a hundred years when Columbus set out to discover a new world. During World War II, by mutual consent, the historic town was spared the devastation that bombing brought to so many more strategic German cities. So today, it retains unblemished its traditional flavor and charm. Almost paradoxically, Heidelberg is also the headquarters for Usurer, a military establishment of tremendous importance and striking power. Command center for hundreds of thousands of fighting men, missiles, guns, tanks, and aircraft strategically placed throughout Germany, Italy, and France. Among Usurer's border patrol units, the reconnaissance or recon squads, training alerts are frequent. The men never know in advance when an alert is coming. They move with swift and practiced economy of motion, spurred by the knowledge that each second could be vitally important in an actual emergency. After the alarm is sounded, the entire unit is in position, ready to move out with full combat gear to wherever the trouble spot might be. Tanks and armored personnel carriers. Jeeps. And men. The highly mobile Usurer recon units are ready. 24 hours a day, 7 days a week, to deal with any border development along the Iron Curtain, a part of the Usurer story. Elsewhere in Germany, an army colonel boards a helicopter to take a look at some of the 200 miles of barbed wire border which the men of his armored cavalry regiment patrol. The route of the flight is familiar, both to the colonel and his pilot. They've been over it together countless times before. The view is not pleasant. An endless barrier of barbed wire. Behind it, freshly plowed fields. These are not plowed for planting. They are plowed to remove all possible concealment and to reveal the footprints of anyone who tries to approach the barrier, seeking freedom on this side. The fences are electrified with enough voltage to kill anyone who grasps a strand of the barbed wire, making of the satellite country on the other side a single vast concentration camp. Coming in low, the hovering helicopter provides a good look at one of the watchtowers. The communist sentries work always in pairs with a double assignment. Watch for escaping citizens and watch each other. Viewed from this height, actuality can take on the sharp clarity of a symbol. For example, a typical border bridge demolished by the communists. Its main span lies in rubble on the valley floor. On either side of the break, a wide modern highway, grass growing up in its joints, a highway which leads now nowhere at all. Or consider this Czechoslovakian farming town. St. Kinsburg was its name once, and once it was active, productive, alive. Today the only thing moving in it is the shadow of a patrol helicopter. It was too close to the border, too good an escape hatch. Its people evacuated, St. Kinsburg is earmarked for destruction. Such is this section of the iron curtain, different from the rest of it only in specific geography. From here the kernel will go on by land transport to spot check some key border points in person. One such key point is located in this concrete bunker, a border station, from which observer teams keep constant watch across the barrier. Here, machine gun, radio, telephone, and powerful binoculars are the tools of the trade. And from here observers can flash the news of any border development on to usera headquarters some 200 miles away within four minutes. There are other such posts, manned around the clock, at points all along the barrier. The kernel is traveling with a five-man roving patrol, which uses two jeeps, both mount loaded machine guns, and radio equipment which can make instant contact with the border stations, other patrols, and observation posts. Here, near the border, the vehicles of patrol units have the road to themselves. The lack of traffic would be understandable even if there were no military restrictions. Every road to the border, big or little, is a dead end. Periodically a stop must be made to take a close look at some particular feature. Repeated detailed inspection through field glasses, day in, day out. And anything the least bit different, a reinforcement of a section of the barrier, a change in the patrol schedule of the guards on the communist side. Anything is to be reported on the spot by radio. These roving patrols provide added assurance that should the need ever arise, the alert will be swiftly passed to the armoured recon units on whom would rest the responsibility for the initial delaying action. The check completed, it's back into the saddle and move out to the next stop. For the men who maintain this constant patrolling, this may not be exciting duty. Century duty seldom is, unless something goes wrong, but it is necessary. A break in the solitude comes when the patrol reaches a checkpoint manned by men of the West German border police. These men effectively maintain surveillance over a wide area with the help of their keen-nosed, sentry and tracking dogs. Landus Grenza, the sign says, the frontier. And the border is that all right, a place where one way of life leaves off and another begins. These particular checkpoints happen to be on the border between Germany and communist hell Czechoslovakia. But along other sectors of the iron curtain are other roving patrols like this one, constantly on the move, checking, watching across the barriers, reporting change or lack of change. It has been called a war of binoculars. So go the days of the men who make up the recon patrols. Days composed of strictly followed schedules and constant alertness. Hours of looking at terrain already familiar, searching for the unfamiliar. Watching over empty roadways, quiet between the trees, making sure they stay that way. In this report, we can only touch the highlights to impress upon you that in Eucharist, your interests are strongly defended. Have you any idea of the strength and power of one of Eucharist's armored divisions? Let me show you. It isn't often that anyone gets to see this. This is a full armored division. To give you an idea of size, each of those small dark squares includes more than a thousand men. This division with its 14 battalions and its special troops forms a striking force of roughly 15,000 men with tanks, self-propelled artillery and vehicles numbering in the thousands. Everything is ready as the commander of troops reports to General Clark, sir, the division is formed. Never before on film has the full massed might of an armored division been assembled in a single formation. From the deck of his command jeep, Eucharist's commander in chief will troop the line. And as we follow, you will see in one continuous scene the massed men, machines and weapons of an armored division. 10,000 men jump to the business of getting the division ready to move out. Minutes, the men are in position. The division is ready to roll. These are M-48 tanks, the fast-moving cavalry of the 20th century. These are fast being replaced by the even harder hitting M-60s capable of defeating any present day enemy armor. Personnel carriers, enough of them to race thousands of fully equipped armored infantrymen into battle and deliver them ready for action from behind their shields of armor plate. These are the sights and sounds of a full division on the move. Hundreds of jeeps, trucks, support vehicles like the armored assault bridges which you see in the background. Mounted honest John missiles. A seemingly endless array of mechanized firepower. 105 self-propelled howitzers on the move. With ample room for a supply of ammunition these can provide the highly mobile artillery support which a fast-moving force must have. Last in line come the formidable 155s. Impressive as it is, is still only part of the story. More and more, the rugged and versatile helicopter is playing a major role in military operations. Without need for airstrips or parachutes user-recopters can move troops swiftly over short distances and set them down where the action is. Fresh, untired by forced marching or rugged terrain fully equipped and ready to put their weapons into operation. Weapons are the latest and best. Light army observation planes are available to direct the mortar and artillery fire of ground forces with pinpoint accuracy to its target. Still more supporting fire is available from helicopters armed with racks of rockets. Copters armed with machine guns and rockets and linked by radio with ground units can be used to help neutralize specific targets in support of an infantry assault. Training is constant too with the bigger rockets which are part of USERA's Sunday Punch. The mobility of the honest John on its truck-mounted launcher together with its nuclear capability make it a major item in the USERA field arsenal. These missile crews reflect the increasingly technical skills which modern weapons systems require of the American soldier. Once in position, only minutes are needed for the team to zero in on target. Uncanny accuracy is the hallmark of the sleek lacrosse guided missile. Another important part of USERA's preparedness is here, several hundred feet above the earth. USERA units are not only ready for action where they are, they are prepared to get up and go. In an era of swiftly developing situations, the capacity to react immediately and in effective force is a necessity. USERA's airborne units provide that capacity. Today, however, not all operations involve large, regular forces of combat troops. Increasingly, insurgency and guerrilla operations threaten the security of free nations. Our answer in Europe to this problem lies with the men of the 10th Special Forces. The small Special Forces team does not require a large and open-drop zone, and in actual practice would seldom have one. Accordingly, they train to land where the landing is dangerous, developing a skill in parachute control which lets them touch down without harm in a field studded with upright wooden stakes. With this introduction to the men of Special Forces, we come to the end of part one of the USERA story. In part two, you will see the highly demanding training which goes into the making of these skilled and dedicated specialists in unconventional warfare and other vital aspects of the USERA story, the United States Army in Europe. Big picture is an official report for the armed forces and the American people. Produced by the Army Pictorial Center. Presented by the Department of the Army in cooperation with this station.