Week One: On Base

The view of base from our hotel room.

I arrived in Germany about a week ago, joining Jason in the temporary lodgings on Spangdahlem Air Force Base. My exposure to base life and the military has been quite limited in the past—only a few trips to the Naval Station in Newport, RI, and stories from active and former service member friends and family—so I didn’t have a great idea of what to expect. Additionally, as I commonly tell people, I am liberal enough to be boarder-line communist and thereby have no great love for the *idea* of military action, but with that, I am practical enough to understand the *need* for it and fully appreciate those that serve. With that background in mind, here are some of my initial impressions of the base:

1. I’m really into Taps being played at 9pm. The base plays revelry at 7am, and the German and US national anthems at 5pm. This gives a nice flow to the days (though I have been rarely awake for revelry). And there is really nothing better than Taps to end the day. (Though, the tape played over the loud speaker has a bit at the end where it plays a touch-tone sequence, which distracts from relaxation of the tune.)
2. The atmosphere feels like a college campus on ROTC day. Most of the Airmen are young—I’d say under 25—so to me—at 31—it feels like there are just a bunch of kids in uniforms around, with campus just happening to be very close to an airport. There are bars, places to eat and activity groups, much like my undergrad experience (minus the problem sets, I assume). The base, though, is much cleaner, quieter and orderly than any college campus where I have set foot.
3. The gym is really nice. I guess that is to be expected when one part of your life revolves around being in very good shape, but I was impressed nonetheless.
4. Generally, things run pretty well. Again, I guess this is to be expected as the government does this all the time, but the whole process of getting on base and getting in the system was generally painless. I did have to go to a number of different offices and Jason needed to accompany me for the first day or so, but when I generally think of anything run by the government, I assume it is going to be a Kafkaesque experience. I was pleasantly surprised to find that to not be the case.
5. The mixture of German and American culture on-base is interesting. The majority of the beers available in the bars and stores are German and a number of the employees on base are German, but all other people around you are Americans, which makes for a strange mind shift when you have spent the day out in the countryside speaking bits and pieces of German and now need to order in English.

We do have an apartment and will be moving off base on Monday. We’ll be far enough away to not hear Taps, which is too bad, but we will be able to interact more easily with Germans, which will be welcome. We’ve done some exploring off base, especially after our car arrived on Thursday. The area of the country we are in is beautiful and rural. There are plenty of places to hike and go on bike rides and there are cities a short drive away. My first impression is that it looks much like up-state New York or Vermont. I think we will be at home here quickly.

Next week I am off to Norway on a work trip, so my next post will be regarding that adventure.