From Greece to Germany

We moved from Hellenikon Air Base in Athens, Greece, in the summer of 1984. I was reassigned to Ramstein Air Base in Kaiserslautern, Germany. I was supposed to be in Athens for 30 months but the military moved me after just 14 months. Things had gone very well for my career in Athens so the move to Ramstein was a sort-of compliment from the Air Force. I was “invited” to move up to the United States Air Forces in Europe Headquarters to be a staff officer in the Munitions Support Squadron directorate. I was to help with the support for all the MUNSS units in Italy, Greece, and Turkey. The time in Germany was a continuation of my Greece assignment so I was only obliged to stay there for two years. That turned out to be a good thing because I really didn’t like my two years there. In fact, it was the worst assignment I had as an officer!

We had a large GMC Safari van in Greece and I decided to drive to Germany rather than ship it and fly. We took a ferry from the Port of Pireus, Greece, to Venice, Italy, and then drove over the Alps to Germany. The ferry left in the late afternoon and we went through the Corinthian Canal after dark. I took the three bigger kids up on deck to watch as we passed through the really deep canal. We had driven over the canal on a bridge with the kids several times so they knew where we were. It was a good experience for them. We then sailed through the Ionian Sea the rest of the night and arrived at the port in Venice the next morning. We got the van off the ferry and drove north to Aviano Air Base, where we got a couple of hotel rooms for several nights. The next morning we drove to a parking area outside Venice and took a bus in (remember, Venice is a city of canals so you can’t drive in the city).

Venice is a really beautiful, historic, and interesting city. The weather was beautiful the day we were there and the place was full of tourists. I remember one incident from that day very well. We wanted to take the guided tour through Saint Marks Cathedral. It was free but you had to wait for your turn to go with a guide. We were waiting in a big entry hall at the front of the church. I don’t remember how long we waited but it was probably about an hour or so. There were signs in several languages telling everyone to be respectfully quiet and that women couldn’t go into the cathedral with shorts or revealing tops. There was a large souvenir stand that ran almost halfway across the front of the entry hall. There was a big, burly, hairy Italian guy manning the stand. After awhile the noise got pretty loud in the entry hall. Suddenly, the big guy slammed his ham-sized palm onto the top of the wooden stand with a thunderous pounding sound and shouted in English, “Be quiet! This is a house of God!” I laughed out loud at the absurdity of it all. There he was, in the entryway of a cathedral hawking trinkets and he scolded us about being too loud in a house of God. I still chuckle to this day when I remember the incident.