Volume CXXXIII, Number 9 November 9, 2001 f

"Drop your pants, soldier"
LUDWIG VAN RANG
STAFF WRITER

If Maine winters can be long and cold, you should try those in the Bavarian Forest. It was here, in the mountains of eastern Bavaria close to the Czech border, while stationed with the US Army in Germany, that I for two years ran on winter maneuvers, appropriately yet chillingly called Winter Shield, with the Czech border then still constituted part of the Iron Curtain, dividing communist from non-communist Europe, and the potential enemy was not only Communist Czechoslovakia but the Soviet Union.

The two Winter Shields now blur into one wintry memory. But it is the first one, truly pristine if also painful, I remember most clearly.

By and large a pleasant memory, it is at the same time connected with something distinctly unpleasant. Immediately after our return from "the field", I landed in the 14th Army Field Hospital. It was not far from Bad Kreuznach, the pretty little spa town on the Nahe river where I was stationed.

The morning we were supposed to leave for the three-week exercise in the wintry wastes of the Bavarian Forest, I reported sick. Telling the Army doctor, not much older than me, I had noticed blood in my urine and a swelling in one of my testicles, he took a quick look, saying I'd probably gotten a dose of the clap.

Assuring him I had not consorted with any prostitutes (such as my friend Minta had wanted to fix me up with) was useless. The young doctor gave me a doubtful look, as if to say I was a "malingerer," trying to avoid having to go on maneuvers. I almost felt flattered, since it made me appear as "one of the guys."

So, I set out with the rest in a long convoy in the direction of Würzburg, via Mainz and Frankfurt, with me driving the Civil Affairs jeep, Lieutenant Stankevicius beside me, and Colonel Wilson, the CA Officer, behind us.

Now, I'd never driven a jeep before and, therefore, did so with a certain amount of trepidation, but once having got the hang of it, I rather enjoyed the experience. There was only one problem or, really, two, after a while.

One was that as we headed further east the roads, increasingly icy, had huge snowdrifts on either side, in one of which, on a slippery bend, I managed to land the jeep which carried the entire Civil Affairs Section.

But, though trying hard, I couldn't manage to get it out again. Stinky was furious.

"Goddammit, Rang," he shouted "haven't you ever driven a jeep before?" Silly question. He knew damn well I hadn't. Easy does it, the Colonel said.

Jumping out, the Lieutenant told me to get out too and let him take the wheel. This was like déjà vu I thought, just like Big Brother Bill at Bowdoin jumping out of the Wilys Jeep station wagon he was teaching me to drive, after I'd stalled it on the steep road up into Wiscasset. My "learning-to-drive" history was repeating itself.

Swearing like a trooper, just as Bill had, Stankevicius got behind the wheel and with a few of the requisite rocking maneuvers, he managed to get the jeep out of the snow drift almost immediately.

The other problem was that my swollen testicle was hurting like hell.
So enlarged and painful did it get that after a few days in the field, I had to report sick again. Drop your pants, soldier, the army field doctor said.

It wasn't the clap, he said, but epiditemitis, an inflammation of the honey-comb-like layer of sensitive tissue surrounding the testicle. Given some tablets, I was dismissed.

Despite continuing discomfort in the affected area, the three weeks out in the field passed quite pleasantly and, especially for someone like me in a clerical position, with considerably less discomfort in other respects than most.

Since maneuver damage was expected to be considerable Civil Affairs had its own Command Post Tent, complete with camp beds, pot-bellied stove, chairs and desk. It certainly beat having to spend sub-zero nights in two-man tents like the rest of the guys, with or without the clap.

During the day, I was nice and warm, and at night too, even if Stinky's snoring kept me awake half of it. The Colonel, on the other hand, slept as quietly as a dormouse. Wilson really was the gentlest and kindest of souls I ever encountered in the military, modest and even self-effacing to an amazing degree.

One dark night, as I sat reading by the light of a spirit lamp someone stumbled across the tent ropes outsides, nearly bringing the whole works down.

"Goddamn fool," I yelled. "That's me," the Colonel's voice, calm as ever, came back.

Returned to barracks, with the swelling not much better, I had to go on sick call once more. This time I was not treated like a "malingerer," but instead dispatched to hospital right away, to be given a course of penicillin and ice packs.

Years later, as a civilian, I had to have two operations to remove painful cysts in that area, possibly the residue of a case of epiditemitis not treated soon enough.

Maybe I should have sued Uncle Sam.