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Show Russell Jacobs 25 November 2009 artillery were doing their job. And, uh, so and we were spread out, fanned out, in a formation that, um, was, you know, it was at that time regular warfare. People from, you know, West Point, that's what they were taught. You know, so, you know, I drove him around to all the guns when we were out in ... We went to two places, one in Grafenveer, which is an area in, close to southern Germany where Hitler trained his troops, uh, for World War Two. And it's a very large forested area in southern Germany that was just a great place to go in the summer. The winter was very harsh, very cold. And so, that was my job. Was to take him around. And I did that for. .. probably up until the time, uh, the following fall where I was allowed to go down to Garmisch and try out for the Ski Patrol. MD: Um-hum. So how did that opportunity come about? RJ: Well, my battery commander when I first arrived in Germany knew, you know knowing that I was from Salt Lake thought well maybe he's a skier and asked me. And I said, "Yeah, I' ma skier. I've been skiing for a long time." And he says, "Well, if you keep your nose clean and you do your job well, then I'm going to let you, I'll let you go down and go through the week course." They give you a week course of First Aid, and then you go up on the mountain on the Zugspitze, which is the highest mountain in the Bavarian Alps in Germany, and have a ski test to see your skiing ability. And they needed three hundred of us to work three different ski areas. Uh, Garmisch was the biggest. And so they would pick and choose from the six hundred that were down there, three hundred that was allowed to stay. And I was one of the lucky ones that was allowed to stay. So I was on the Ski Patrol through that winter up until the very, almost the very end of the season when I had a slight dismay with a little girl that I brought in [my dorm room]. So they released me. And uh, I went back to my unit in central 18 |
