A night to remember

I have revisited Bitburg many times since I was stationed there in the 1960s. This picture was taken when I went back to the first German gasthaus I had ever been to, Zum Edelweiss, which was just outside the main gate, across the ambulance parking lot from the medics' barracks. In the 1960s, the troops called the place Mom's. The man I found behind the bar on my last visit was Mom's son. Mom retired after making a fortune and was living on the shore of a lake in the Alps. (Photo by Walter Foery)

The journey from Richmond to Bitburg was lengthy -- metaphorically and physically. After two weeks of leave at home, my father drove me to McGuire AFB in New Jersey, which took most of a day. That night I boarded a plane for my first trip across the ocean. Our destination: Rhein-Main Air Base in Frankfurt. From there, I boarded an Air Force bus -- about as Spartan as they come -- for the bumpy four-hour ride through the mountains to Bitburg.

By the time I was assigned to a room in the medic barracks, I was dead on my feet.

It was December 16, 1966, about 4 o'clock in the afternoon, and it was already dusk. During the winter, night falls early in those latitudes -- Bitburg is due east from lower Canada -- and dawn comes late. As the winter solstice approaches, the days are short, cold and dreary. I slept from about 5 p.m. to 7 the next morning and woke up with my first case of jet lag.

The next day was filled with paperwork, a tour of the 36th Tactical Hospital and introductions to the staff in the operating room suite. As dark fell, I ate dinner in the hospital chow hall and headed for my room.

"Let's go get a beer at Mom's," one of my new roommates said with an evil grin. I might have been able to handle one beer, maybe even two or three. But no ....

That's not what my fellow medics had in mind. Zum Edelweiss -- named for a tiny white flower found in the German mountains -- was crowded, but we found seats at a table, and soon they were more medics pulling up chairs and buying rounds. My new friends were intent on initiating me by getting me commode-hugging drunk. I lost count of the beers I drank -- Bitburger Pilsner draft, Dortmunder Hansa Pilsner in bottles, Simonbräu Export on tap.

Then came the schnapps. To loud encouragement, I downed shots of apple, pear, plum and cherry schnapps. Then came the true killer shots -- of slivovitz, a distilled beverage made from plums. By midnight, I could no longer feel my lips. Or focus. I hadn't paid the dienstmädchen for anything. My new friends paid it all, and I was as drunk as I ever want to be.

Mind you, I grew to love and appreciate the beer, schnapps and wines of Germany over the years. The Bitburger Pilsner was brewed no more than 2 miles from the base, and it's still the best beer I have ever tasted. But I wasn't appreciating it that night.

A lot of little things can remind you of how far you are from home when you're in a foreign country. Two such things stick out from that night. In the men's room in the basement of Zum Edelweiss there was a commode, one tiled wall and a large stone fixture in the center of the room that looked like a dentist's spit-basin on steroids. A stream of water circled the lip of the thing and drained at the bottom. The troops called it a vomitorium. It was designed specifically for throwing up in. At the top of the tiled wall was a pipe with holes running its length, like a soaker hose. At the bottom of the wall there was a shallow trough. The wall was meant to be urinated on.

I used the vomitorium and the wall in equal measure that night. To this day, I don't have a clue as to how I got back to the barracks. I might have stumbled, crawled or been carried. I do remember another stop to pray to the White Porcelain God in the barracks before I made it to bed.

I had been initiated. I hadn't reported to work in the OR yet, but I was now "officially" a medic.

The next morning at 6 a.m., with a hangover uniquely awful in all my experience, I reported for duty in the operating room. The chief OR nurse knew all about the welcome-to-Bitburg ritual. She assigned me an easy task for the day. I folded OR sheets and towels for 7 hours, then went back to bed and slept straight through until the next morning.

Welcome to Bitburg, Airman Dale.