Main entrance, Military Police Station, Ferris Barracks, Erlangen, West Germany, circa 1974 (Photo credit: U.S. Army)
The two U.S. Army combat brigades assigned to our area were away conducting field training for war, if necessary. It was serious business as beyond the Iron Curtin were 75 Soviet combat divisions; they posed a constant invasion threat to Western Europe during the Cold War.
“Pete” was not going to let his new partner do serious police work, and I was brand new. I had arrived in Germany on July 12, 1974, fresh out of Military Police School at Fort Gordon, GA.
The last thing draftee Specialist 4th Class (SP4) “Pete” Peters wanted to do was an investigation of a serious crime. It might cause him to be held over past the end of his 2-year enlistment. The Army could do that to a draftee because, technically, under federal law, they had 8-year service obligations. It had happened to others; it was not going to happen to him.
Our Military Police Platoon Sergeant, Sergeant First Class (SFC) Douglas “D.C.” Crumpler, told us newbies to just go along with the program and learn what little you can, for now. The draftees would be gone soon, and new Sergeants were coming.
My first two shifts (midnight to 8 AM) on MP patrol were dull. As Peters was the senior amongst us, the four Military Policeman who worked those shifts, he was the Patrol Supervisor.
Two combat brigades were in our 800-square mile patrol area in northern Bavaria just north of Nuremberg. One was 2nd Brigade of the 1st Armored Division on Ferris Barracks in Erlangen. It had three battalions of armor, one mechanized infantry battalion, and the usual support elements. The other was the 210th Field Artillery Group on Herzo Base just outside Herzogenaurach. It had three field artillery battalions and a supporting company of fixed-wing observation aircraft.
When brigades were off training, a small number of soldiers were left behind on those bases to do various duties such as guard duty, personnel administration, taking in supplies and resupplying those “down range” doing field training, providing medical and dental services at the clinics, and providing a mess hall. New and departing personnel in and out-processed as well.
Ferris Barracks had two platoons of Military Police. I was assigned to 2nd Platoon of Company C, 793rd MP Battalion, which regularly provided MPs to conduct law enforcement operations in the Erlangen MP Station’s area of operations. Annually, we did several weeks of field training in support of VII Corps. The other platoon was the 2nd Platoon of the 501st MP Company. It was directly assigned to the 2nd Brigade. While it spent much of its time down range during field training in support of 2nd Brigade, it supplemented the law enforcement mission with MP patrols about 25% of the time and provided all the coverage when my platoon was doing field training. Together, we served as the first response police force when troops ran afoul of military law, the Uniformed Code of Military Justice (UCMJ).
We were empowered, while on-duty, to use that level of force necessary to apprehend (arrest) military personnel who violated the UCMJ. Under the Status of Forces Agreement (SOFA) between the United States and West Germany, we could forcibly detain, for German authorities, any foreign national who violated base security rules, committed any crime on-post, or endangered public safety in our presence off-post.
That’s a lot of authority to hand to young Privates after all of 8 weeks of formal police training. Some of us volunteers were 18 years old. I was 21 at the time and as old as the few remaining Vietnam-era draftees in 2nd platoon who were serving out their 2-year forced enlistments. They would all return to the U.S. and civilian life by the end of that year, 1974.
Backing up to my first three nights on MP patrol …
Because both brigades were largely off training, the phone at the Erlangen MP Station rang less than usual. But the MP Desk Sergeant was not going to let the draftees wander off and find some place to sleep while on duty. “Sleeping MPs don’t hear radio calls.”
Peters and I were sent the first night to one loud domestic disturbance in the family housing complex adjacent to the southern edge of Ferris Barracks. The husband and wife were drunk but both quieted down when the Soldier answered the door. Their clothes were disheveled. He said the fresh-looking scratches on his face were from work. She said the red marks on her arms were from housework. Peters made them both promise to behave. We left and filed no report.
We spent most of the next night slowly patrolling Ferris Barracks rattling doors to ensure they were locked. Then we hung out at the MP Station doing “station beautification.” Morning chow at the Mess Hall started at 0600 hours (6 AM) and we lingered.
The third night was different.
First, the Desk Sergeant ordered us to go find some “found contraband.” I needed to begin to learn how to fill out MP reports and forms. Peters knew just where to look. We rolled in with our lights off behind the back of the 1/35 Armor Battalion, grabbed our flashlights, and scouted the first-floor windowsills of one company’s troop barracks. We found a cold yet odorous hash pipe sitting on the sill of the second window we came to. Peters said, “Okay. Let’s return to the station. You’re doing the paperwork until you get it right.” He did not try to identify the owner of the drug and paraphernalia. I was not happy, but the Army did not pay me to be happy.
Yet on the way to the MP Station, one huge and very drunk GI staggered into the street in front of us. We stopped. The Soldier collapsed. By huge I mean his military ID card indicated he was 6’6” and weighed 290 lbs. I’m a lightweight and Peters was of average size. He radioed for the other patrol to come and lend a hand. Another draftee and his newbie partner soon arrived.
The plan was to load him into an MP jeep, haul him to his company, and release him to the CQ (the Charge of Quarters Soldier on overnight duty) at his 1/46 Infantry Battalion unit.
However, when we stood the intoxicated GI up, he started swinging.
We did not beat him to a pulp. Instead, the four of us wrestled him to the ground, placed him in handcuffs, and put leg irons on him. The charge was Drunk and Disorderly Conduct. He sobered up quite a bit during the short ride to the MP Station and was apologetic.
Peters drove out the Main Gate, then a block west, and pulled in at the front door to the MP station at the next corner. The other patrol verbally directed our prisoner to start walking up towards the front door. They did not assist him. The cement stairs were edged with angled steel bars. Leg irons make it difficult to climb stairs and he was handcuffed behind his back.
The GI tripped, went down, landed his face on an angled steel edge, and knocked out both of his front teeth. The four of us carried him the rest of the way in and sat him on the prisoner’s bench.
Peters “freaked out.”
He loudly and colorfully described visions in his head of being held past his ETS (End of Term of Service) date for court martial – his own court martial – for Dereliction of Duty. As the Patrol Supervisor and senior MP present, he was responsible for the prisoner’s safety. And there was no escaping the fact that the GI was black, and the five MPs present were all white. Those were tense times and Commanders at all levels were sensitive to complaints of abuse.
While Peters and the MP Desk Sergeant discussed how to write it up, I got some ice from the refrigerator in the breakroom and pulled out the pressure bandage from my pistol belt. The GI wasn’t bleeding a lot and my makeshift icepack both stemmed the flow and relieved the pain.
Then I set to work doing the Found Contraband paperwork. The other three MPs worked the other case. I overheard talk about claiming the GI’s teeth got knocked out when he first resisted apprehension. That talk ended when I pulled Peters and the Desk Sergeant aside and flatly stated I was not going to lie in a sworn statement. They were not happy with me.
Two hours later, the GI’s First Sergeant arrived to sign a release form for the prisoner. In front of us, he asked his Soldier what happened. Amazingly, the once drunk GI replied he had tripped and knocked out his own teeth. Then he thanked me for the first aid. Peters was off the hook.
That third night was Peters’ last shift on MP patrol duty. He had at least taught me to be careful when leg irons were used. SFC Crumpler put him to work doing maintenance until he departed.
When 1/35 Armor returned from field training, my newbie MP partner and I drove over. I briefed that unit’s First Sergeant on where we found the pipe. The Commander had the troops who slept in the room urinalysis tested. Two came up positive for THC and received non-judicial punishment under Article 15 of the UCMJ (fines, reductions in rank, restriction, and extra duty).
The next Spring, that same MP Desk Sergeant was found curled up and sleeping soundly underneath his desk on a midnight shift by the Post & 2nd Brigade Commander, Colonel Price. The latter called our Provost Marshal (MP chief of police) in Nuremberg at home. The Desk Sergeant had a drinking problem and sleeping while on duty was not his first infraction; he was relieved of duty and administratively discharged from the Army soon thereafter.
As fate would have it, his departure soon sent me to a deadly encounter one block away.
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‘Learning the Hard Way’ is the first in a coming series of articles about my first Army tour of Europe as a Military Policeman, from July 1974 through February 1977. ‘Of the troops. For the troops.’ was the MP Corps motto. We were Soldiers. It was an honor to serve. The next article in this free series can be reached by clicking on ‘Of the Troops and For the Troops.’