Many Moons ago, THE place to go on Friday and Saturday, if you were a young single troop in Baumholder, was The Metropol downtown.
Keep in mind that Baumholder consisted of 3 Infantry, 2 Armor, 4 Field Artillery* Battalions, a Forward Support Battalion and half of a Main Support Battalion. About half of 8th Infantry Division. Throw in some Ash and Trash units and the Young Single Male to Young Single Female Ratio (including all the Frauleins looking for a ticket to The Land of the Round Door Knobs) was easily 20~25 to 1. Girls who would be a 2 anywhere else, became a 9.5 within a week of setting foot in Baumholder.
Anywho, given the high Testosterone to Estrogen imbalance, throw in some alcohol, and sure and G-d made little Green Apples, there was going to be a least one fight breakout at the Metropol each night. Sometimes, several.... The MP Blotter was always about half traffic accidents, and half "Drunk, Stupid, and Disorderly." Often with (Mutual) Assault thrown in just to make sure the JAG stayed busy processing Article 15 paperwork, along with giving 8th Finance the opportunity to screw up the guilty solder's pay for several months beyond the terms of the Art. 15.
Being MPDO and later Deputy Provost Marshal/Operations Officer, I got the chance to lead the charge into the fray. (Hint: When using the night stick, go for the shins. Takes the fight right out of most people. )
Yes, even though it was off post, the German Police (GP's) always invited us to the party. In fact, most times the call from the Metropol came to us first. "The Americans are fighting and tearing the place up, come haul them out." So we'd call the GP's and then saddle up.
Anywho, we get the place cleared out and are sorting Americans from 'Rads, when the GP"S start screaming for everyone to get on the ground and there are H&K's being waved around. The GP's are clearly on edge and are wanting to shoot someone. So us MP's see this, and suddenly there are 1911's being bandied about and all the LE types are screaming at everyone to get prone on the ground.
I manage to work my over to the Head GP and ask "What the Fark are We Doing, Hans?"
"Our new Cadet has lost his sidearm..."
Yeah, no way you could have pulled so much as a sewing needle out of my ass. So somewhere in this human scrum of 200+ folks proned out in front of the Metropol, is someone well lubed , that we just whacked with a nightstick across the shins, with a GP popgun. Wonderful. Fark could this be bad. Yell at my MP's to start to search in three man teams. One to search, one to cover the searchee, and one to cover everyone else.
After about twenty minutes of searching, the GP's suddenly holster their guns, and visibility relax. I again work my over to Hans....
"The idiot let it fall out of his holster in the car. That's were we found under the passenger seat."
Cancel Red Alert. Start questioning everyone and lets find the perps of the fight.
About a week later, see Hans at another Metropol bust....
"Hey, where's your GP Cadet ?"
(very deadpan) "He is no longer with us."
Yeah, no *expletive deleted*it. That was a CEM (Career Ending Move), before your career even started....Moron....
* - There was also a Brigade Headquarters along with the Division Artillery Headquarters. So all of 2nd Brigade, all of DIVARTY, and half of DISCOM. One of the Field Artillery Battalions was up at Strassburg Kaserne in Idar-Oberstein about 20 minutes away, but those troops, they would still come to the Metropol when not in the field. There were also some Air Defense Artillery Battalions in and around Baumholder. They were known primarily as "Blotter Stuffers". Slow night, yep, just wait until 4/1 ADA (aka Fourth of the Worst) and 1/1 ADA (Worst of the Worst) batteries relieve each other. "Hi Captain X. LT Scout26 here. I've got half of your battery in my D-Cell. Wanna send your entire NCO chain of command to come fetch 'em? We'll have the MP reports on when and where they were being drunk and dumb in a no stupid zone tomorrow.
