By Suzanne Rice

Getting orders to Germany in 1982 was not what we wanted, but like all dutiful Army families, we did as ordered. We settled in a very small dorf (village) on the Main River in the area called Franken, a district of the State of Bavaria. Schwarzenau was a farming area with one of the crops being white asparagus (Spargel)– a delicacy that appeared in May each year, but sugar beets and grapes growing on the steep hills overlooking the river for Frankenwein (wine from Franken) were the main products of the area.

Our daughters were not quite three and almost six when we arrived in Germany and our landlady suggested that Lesley (the elder) could attend a German kindergarten in the next town, Dettelbach; it was there that she started her German education.

At that time adult military dependents could attend German language classes along with their military sponsors, so that was the best place to start as a dependent new to Germany. Between the two of us, we learned to get along in our small town where there were no other Americans.

In the Spring of 1983, we got the idea of inviting my sister Stephanie, (sixteen years younger) to come to live with us for a year – to take a break from College for the adventure of a lifetime. She had just earned her Associate of Arts degree at the local junior college, so it was a perfect time for a break. She arrived in August.

We spent some time trying to find some young Americans, spouses of young soldiers or dependents of American officers for her to spend time with; there weren’t many of them. She thought of taking a class or two at the University of Maryland on post, but with her Associate Degree already completed, there was nothing that she could take. She did, from time to time, babysit for some small American dependents stationed nearby in Kitzingen. She did find one Army wife near her age, but that was the extent of her social life.

Back in our little town, during the first year in Germany, we had been making a myriad of friends, but most were either the elder citizens or the small children who were fascinated with the strange people in the neighborhood who could not speak to them except for a word or two. We knew no one between the ages of 5 and 40. Stephanie came along with us wherever we went and that was fun and very different from her life in Southern Illinois. We kept looking for someone nearer her age, even as she was being adopted by some of our 60+ year old friends. They invited her to harvest grapes in the vineyards nearby and she found out just how hard that work was – to thank her, she was offered Neuer Wein (new wine) to drink and German goodies to eat and some prizes wine glasses to take back to the U.S.A.

She helped Lesley figure out her German homework when Lesley began first grade in the Local Schule (German elementary school) – not because she could

speak German, but because she had a German to English dictionary! The community Schule was across the River Main in the next town, Schwarzach, where Lesley was the only American attending. We had fun, but there were still no people around 20 years old for her to meet.
The day before Halloween, Stephanie suggested that we could dress up and go “trick or treating”. (Bill was at the Grafenwohr training area, as usual.) Only problem, Halloween is not celebrated in Bavaria. That didn’t bother her – we could do a reverse trick or treat. We would take them treats! She dressed up as a soldier in Bill’s camouflage uniform and the rest of us put some things together, one of which was a very fat (pillows) clown and started out to see our neighbors. We carried along bags of American candy to hand out which was bought at the Commissary at Harvey Barracks in Kitzingen. These ordinary American candies would have been a rare treat for our neighbors. Since our neighbors didn’t speak English, this would be quite an adventure. How to explain our unusual appearance? We left that up to our seven year old linguist, Lesley!

We started at the far end of Adenauerstrasse, knocked at each door and were immediately escorted into each living room while the mistress of the house went scurrying into the kitchen – every time. What was she doing in there? The German families in our little town were always very generous and this time, though we surprised them by coming to their door in the dark of the night, each lady came back with German treats for us to take home. It wasn’t reverse Halloween as we expected; it was treats all around!

That was only the beginning. Our last stop was the family immediately across the street from our house – the home of the Familie Schmidt. Until then, we were aware of Herr and Frau Schmidt, Martina about 10 and Markus, 3. Frau Schmidt, in good humor, invited us in and also went scurrying off. While she was scurrying into the kitchen, she began to hatch a plan, unbeknownst to us. We spent a cordial few minutes in the Schmidt’s living room with Lesley translating and, then, went back home, having had a marvelous and unusual Halloween.

At that time, the two days after Halloween were National Holidays. November 1, All Saints Day, was spent in Church services commemorating the Catholic Holy Day. On November 2, All Souls Day, families would meet, go to the local cemetery to pray for and decorate the graves of loved ones buried there.

They would then gather in homes with family for Tee/Kaffee (afternoon tea and coffee and a few treats to accompany them) and exchange memories of lost loved ones. On the afternoon of All Saints Day, our phone rang and Frau Schmidt’s plan was put in place…Frau Schmidt asked to speak to Lesley which seemed rather odd in itself, since Lesley was seven years old at the time. When the conversation with Frau Schmidt was over, Lesley reported that her Aunt Stephanie had been invited to join the Schmidt family for Kaffee the next day at 4 p.m. The kind invitation made Stephanie very nervous. How could she possibly spend a whole afternoon with people with whom she could not have a conversation? Frau Schmidt had thought of everything: she invited Lesley to come along to translate. That reassured Stephanie a bit, but she was still concerned. Little did she know what that afternoon would mean to her.

The rest of the Rice family spent the afternoon wondering what in the world was going on across the street. How was it going? They came home hours later and both were smiling and happy. Somehow, Frau Schmidt surmised that we had for months been trying to find some friends for Stephanie and she had just the remedy. Besides little Markus and Martina, the Schmidts had three sons, one two years older than Stephanie, one a year older and one a year younger!

Along with their sons, Frau Schmidt had invited some extended family, two young ladies who could speak English well. We had not known it, but there was large group of 20-Somethings in our village and in the other nearby villages for Stephanie to meet. Stephanie’s 20th birthday was only three weeks away and now we could have a celebration!

When there was an event (Christmas and Sylvester, German name for New Years Eve, were coming soon along with all the fests, held almost weekly in the new year before Lent began), Stephanie was invited and became fast friends with these wonderful, young people.

We could never have dreamed that our reverse Halloween trick or treating would open up the most wonderful experiences for Stephanie (and for the rest of us since we continued those friendships for the following three years that we lived in Germany.) What a perceptive and dear friend Frau Schmidt was to recognize just what we had been looking for, without input from any of us!

Follow-up: In 2010, the three Rice ladies returned with Stephanie to our village. What an amazing reunion it was with all of Stephanie’s friends that she had not seen in 25 years. They welcomed her with open arms, as if all those years had not intervened. (The rest of us had visited several times before.) What a tribute to human kindness and friendship – no matter the language!

By Suzanne Rice wife of COL Bill Rice, 1986, Kitzingen, Germany

The Challenger Remembered – 1986

By 1986, we had lived in a tiny German town near Kitzingen, Germany for nearly four years. Bill liked to say that when we got to Germany, he knew the most German having spent three years there from 1970-73. Since he rarely spent any time with German military personnel, he could say what many bachelors knew: “Zwei bier, bitte” (Two beers, please.) and “Wo ist der Bahnhof?”(Where is the train station?) In his second tour of Germany, he rarely used a word of German, either, while participating in many training exercises with only American forces. The family, instead, living in a small German village, was exposed to the German language daily. The girls were in German Kindergarden (age three through five) and Volksschule (first grade through fifth grade) using German each day with their teachers and classmates. In those four years, our daughters soon surpassed their Dad in German language skills (At aged six and nine, they never did order two beers nor ask about the bahnhof.) We were always grateful for their new language skills; in a pinch, we had some good translators in the family. In the four years from 1982-86, we had become dear friends, almost like family, with our German neighbors in Schwarzenau. We were adopted and have been back many times to visit our German “family” there!

In January 1986, we were shocked to hear about the Challenger disaster. On his way home from his duty day, Bill was stunned to hear on Armed Forces Network (AFN) on the car radio the news alert of the initial report of the disaster. He ran into the house and told us to turn on the radio. Later, we thought of checking our television which had only German television stations. Though we could not always keep up with the German commentary, it was obvious by just watching the video what had happened. We were all saddened by the photos we saw. There had been so much anticipation about the teacher in space. People in the US had been curious about what amazing things our astronauts would learn and many schools were anxious to see what the teacher in space would teach their students. It was a great blow to the nation. It turned out that our national sadness was shared by many throughout the world, not the least of which were our German friends and neighbors. Our family became the face of the U.S.A and many wanted to express their condolences to us for our country. They were all very kind in their concerns about our national tragedy.

Several months later, our 75 year old next door neighbor stopped at our house. He didn’t speak English, so the girls came to our rescue, interpreting for him. He asked if we had any pictures of the Challenger astronauts and, if we didn’t, could we find some for him – maybe, in a memorial book? The only place we had to look for American books was at the small Post Exchange (PX) at the nearest U. S. Army base a few miles away. I was not confident that there would be such a book published yet (no internet, then), but I told our neighbor that I would go to the PX and look around. I was delighted to find such a book there. When I took the book over to his house, I learned for the first time that he was a very talented artist. So, what did our old friend want with the photos of the astronauts?

Annually, towns around the Bavarian region of Franconia host hikes that take participants around the town and out into the woods, vineyards or farmland. These are not competitive walks, but rather more leisurely strolls and those joining in receive a souvenir of completion, sometimes, a commemorative plate, sometimes, a medal or beer mug. Participants can choose to walk for 5 or 10 kilometers to complete the adventure. The route is set up so that you can take as much time as you like to complete the walk since there is often an opportunity somewhere along the way to stop and enjoy the scenery with a glass of beer or another treat. People of all ages participate and many young families spend the day walking and pushing stollers through the course with little ones scampering along behind. This walk is called a Volksmarch or a Wandertag (day hike). Soon after the Challenger disaster, the

Kitzingen Volksmarch planning committee came to our neighbor to see if he would make a prototype sketch for the medal to be given out to those who would participate in their Wandertag. Normally, the medal or commemorative plate would bear the image of some special sight in the area such as the landmark, Falterturm (leaning tower) of Kitzingen. However, for the Volksmarch of 1986, they chose a different theme: they wanted to commemorate the Challenger astronauts and our neighbor was the man to whom they turned for the images that would be embossed on the medal.

Our family was quite touched with the kind sentiment that the committee showed by creating that special medal. Our neighbor made a beautiful sketch that became the Kitzingen Wandertag medal that many still treasure today. It was a lovely tribute to our American astronauts and a nice partnership between German and American neighbors.

By Suzanne Rice, Wife of COL Bill Rice, 1-15 Field Artillery, Camp Stanley, Korea

Bill was on an unaccompanied assignment in Korea in the 1-15 Field Artillery when I decided to go and live in Korea – even if I was not authorized to be there and brought nothing but two suitcases of clothing for almost a year’s stay. Before my arrival in Korea in June 1973, Bill found an apartment (one room) for me over a Korean grocery. The second floor apartment had recently been added above the store. The Korean family that owned the store and I shared the newly installed Western bathroom on the first floor. The apartment was completely empty so we went in search of a bed (yo – a fold-up mattress) and that was the extent of the furniture that we had besides the electric skillet that I sent from home and the hot plate that Bill had somehow acquired before my arrival.

It was hot summer when I arrived, so we got a fan, but had no other appliances. This Korean house had no stove or refrigeration as we would know it. It was a pretty sparse existence, but one that we treasured because we could spend some time together. As the Battery Commander, Bill was required to live in the BOQ with the other officers, but we could sometimes have lunch in the Camp Stanley snack bar when he was not “in the field”.

When he arrived in Korea, Bill found one of his West Point roommates already there with his wife and two year old daughter. Our apartment was a block or so away from my new friends. When these friends left Korea for another assignment, we moved into their Korean house. It was a much larger apartment made up of a Korean kitchen, and three other rooms. We used one for a living room/bedroom, one as our American-style cooking kitchen and the smallest room for storage (we really didn’t have anything to store there, but we had the room, anyway.) While we lived in all this luxury, the Korean family of six lived in one room adjacent to our apartment. They were paying off the debt of building the house by renting to Americans who could pay more; eventually, they intended to move into the four-room apartment we rented from them.

The Korean kitchen was a large room three steps below the rest of the house. It contained a sink (not potable water – I got an eye infection from using the water) and a Korea “stove” which lined the whole side of the room below the living room. In the floor of the “stove” were large round indentations in which were placed gigantic round charcoal briquettes (compared to American charcoal used for BBQ). These briquettes, perhaps 10 inches in diameter and 12 inches high, were lit on fire and they provided the heat for cooking, warming water and for heating the one room that could be heated in the winter – our living room/bedroom. These briquettes would be delivered by the charcoal vender several times a week. We would eat our meals on a small folding table while sitting on the heated floor – like Koreans, we had no furniture but the yo. If we had guests, we all sat on the floor.

How did the briquettes heat the house? At the time, Korean homes were heated with ondol heating. The room to be heated was built with flues (pipes) in the floor which were connected to the heat source in the kitchen. Hot air was circulated into these flues and kept the floor very warm in the winter. The floor itself was made of concrete with a covering of thin linoleum which could be removed from time to time. The linoleum needed to be removed for a very important purpose: to look for cracks in the concrete floor. Why? The fumes from the charcoal were poisonous and, if there were cracks in the floor, the carbon monoxide fumes would seep up through the floor and asphyxiate the occupant of the room especially when sleeping since the thin bed pad sat right on the floor to take advantage of the heated floor. Because of the possible carbon monoxide fumes, a window had to be open in the room, no matter the temperature outside. Once during our stay in Ui Jong Bu, it got to 35 degrees below zero. The floor was warm but the breezes from the window kept the temperature pretty cool in the winter. Two American wives who were unaware of the danger died from carbon monoxide poisoning near Camp Casey the winter I was there. It was a pretty ingenious use of natural resources, but could be deadly. Before we left in March 1974, some American wives found apartments that had newly installed steam heat which was a great improvement.

I mentioned the Western bathroom at our old place and some might wonder, even though the second apartment was much roomier, why we would make the move since the bathroom at the new place was a banjo and did not have the Western-style facilities. In other words, the bathroom was a hole in the floor outside in the courtyard of the Korean home where the new apartment was located – and unheated in the winter. Being an old Girl Scout, I was not bothered by an outdoor toilet and found it much better than a Western bathroom that almost never worked. The honey wagon would come by weekly to clean out our facility and it was always clean and working!

It was an amazingly unique first year for a young married couple.

By Suzanne Rice wife of COL Bill Rice, 1-36 Field Artillery, Augsburg, West Germany

In late August, Bill and I returned to Germany for our honeymoon following our wedding in Southern Illinois. At the time, he was the Battery Commander of B Battery, 1-36 FA in Augsburg. Bill had planned a fairy tale honeymoon in Berchtesgaden where we stayed in the historic General Walker Hotel, formerly the Platterhof. (To us, The General Walker Hotel was just a beautiful, old hotel used as a recreation center for American soldiers serving in Europe. In fact, the Platterhof had been used by the Nazi party from 1936 and one room is known as the place where one chapter of Mein Kampf was penned. The Platterhof had tunnels and bunkers that connected it to other Nazi sites around Bertschesgarden. This was not Bill’s first touch with Germany’s recent dark history – his first assignment after graduation from West Point was to Dachau, site of one of the most infamous concentration camps of WWII. He

and other bachelor officers lived in the barracks that had served as home to the concentration camp staff officers.) During Bill’s honeymoon leave, we went on a lovely cruise on the Konigsee, to Hitler’s Eagles Nest, and on a tour of nearby Salzburg, Austria. One evening, we were told that at twilight the Olympic torch bearers for the 1972 Olympics would run past the hotel, so we were there to join in the festivities – an added treat since we had tickets for early September for several Olympic events including field hockey and swimming in Munich and canoe slalom in Augsburg.) I had purchased tickets for these Olympic events while I was in the U.S.A. (American military members could get Olympic tickets, but only by lottery. On the other hand, I was able to purchase tickets in the US – whatever was available when my request was received.) It was a great treat for my family when the tickets arrived at our home in our small Midwestern town. Who else in Centralia would be going to the Olympics? I was even given press credentials by my hometown newspaper in case I was able to use it in some way when I arrived in Germany. I was not able to translate these hometown papers into official press credentials, but I did write an article for the Centralia Evening Sentinel after attending the games.)

We should have known in the era of the Vietnam War that our fairy tale could not last long. Many of Bill’s friends and classmates were serving not in Germany, but on the battlefields of Vietnam. In fact, he came home from his first day back to work after our honeymoon with orders for Vietnam. His three years in Germany would be over in January, so he had been awaiting orders for his next assignment. Being unfamiliar with Army life, I had not been aware of what might be lurking around the next corner! We had no time to dwell on that assignment, months in the future, because life in B Battery kept Bill busy and I was learning what it meant to be a part of Army life. In those years of the draft Army in Germany, Bill was dealing with racial tensions, and alcohol and drug abuse among his soldiers; many had been given a ticket to join the Army instead of going to jail! He had had a knife pulled on him during barracks room inspections and had been pushed down the stairs by a disgruntled soldier; he even had his tires slashed twice. His car set idle for months while his father in St. Louis tried to figure out how to purchase and ship tires to him – no German tires would fit his graduation Pontiac LeMans. Besides personnel issues, his main task as the Battery Commander of an 8 inch nuclear-capable howitzer battery was to be accountable for all the equipment, maintenance and strict standards in preparation for their use should they be called upon on that frontier of the Cold War. Quite a responsibility for our young officers!

Bill was able to break away from his responsibilities for a little while so that we could use our Olympic tickets. It was a festive experience; we were in Munich only a few days before the Olympic Massacre of the Israeli athletes. That startling and horrifying tragedy brought a pall over all of Germany and having just been to the Olympic site ourselves, it was a great sadness to us. We had no idea what was to lay ahead just a month later in Augsburg.

In mid-October, we were jostled from sleep by a phone call about 4 a.m. Bill got into his uniform and left immediately without explanation. The battalion was having its monthly hail and farewell later that evening. I did not hear from Bill throughout the day; I had no way to contact him at the battery so I had to wait patiently for news from him. Having taken a cake decorating class, my most recent project was expected to be a part of the refreshments for the get-together, so I needed to get to Reese Barracks to help set up the refreshments; Bill had our only car so that was beginning to seem impossible. As the time for the event approached, I decided to call the Battalion Commander’s wife to let her know I might not be at the hail and farewell, after all. She was not surprised because her husband had had the same early morning call and she had not heard a word from him all day, either. By the next day, we knew why. They had been dealing with a puzzle: several German nationals had been murdered and a German-national wife of an American soldier had been attacked and raped. Our husbands had been working with the MP’s, the Augsburg Polizei and CID trying to figure out who had done this horrible thing. It took several days to get the puzzle pieces put together. During that first day, clues developed that indicated soldiers in 1-36 FA might have been involved. It took several more days for the story to become clear. One soldier bragged to his barracks roommate that he had been involved with the incident with several other B Battery soldiers – the roommate did not believe him. At that, the bragging soldier said, “Let’s go, I will show you where we left the bodies.” Gruesome, but true. When they arrived at the site, the police were there and immediately arrested the soldier, who was still bragging. It was then easier to find the other two soldiers. Bill spent much of the rest of the time left in Germany coping with judicial hearings, visits to the prisoners in Nuremburg, and caring for relatives of the accused soldiers who arrived without warning. All three soldiers were eventually convicted of both murders and the rape and because they were not were considered adults by German law, they could only get a maximum sentence of ten years in a German prison. Because of the proximity to the Munich Olympic Massacre, the people of Augsburg, who were rightly enraged by the actions of these soldiers, called this incident the Augsburg Massacre. It was a difficult blow to German-American relations at that time.

Bill’s last months in Germany were exceedingly eventful and stressful. In late January, with our household goods packed for shipment and the car steaming toward the U.S.A., we spent the last few days in the transient quarters. While we were there, we heard on the radio that U.S. Secretary of State Henry Kissinger had negotiated an exit for U.S. troops from Vietnam. THE WAR WAS OVER! Now, where would Bill go? When he called the Military Personnel Center in Washington, DC, they said just to go home and wait for a call, so that is we did. We were happy to leave behind the difficulties of the past few months, but wondered what might be next!

By Suzanne Rice, wife of COL Bill Rice, 1-15 Field Artillery, Camp Stanley, Korea

After we moved into a larger place in Ui Jong Bu, Bill decided that we could use an American refrigerator. So, off we went shopping at the Post Exchange in Yongsan (Seoul) about an hour ride on the bus. (No American soldiers had cars there.) We found a mid-sized refrigerator there that fit our purposes and arranged to have it delivered. No Korean in the neighborhood had such an appliance and they were fascinated when it arrived one afternoon. The whole Kyong family (our landlords) came in the apartment to see what it was. Grandma Kyong happened to be there on

that day and we tried to explain to her what it was (no English for her and only a little Korean for me). It was not clear to her, until we opened the door of the refrigerator. It was a blazing hot day and she could not believe it when the cold air rushed out of the refrigerator door. In fact, she would not close the door, but wanted to just stand in it the rest of the afternoon! Without the refrigerator, I would have had to shop daily at the Korea market that was a block or two away, but there was not much I would have liked to eat there. Instead, once a month or so, I would get on the Korean bus in Ui Jong Bu, take it for an hour to the Commissary, shop and, then, take a taxi back to Ui Jong Bu with my purchases. It was an all-day process.

One evening, after I got back from my work day at St. Louis High School at Camp Stanley, I started to cook the meal for that evening. I was in the midst of using all of our appliances (the electric skillet and the hot plate) when the transformer on the refrigerator kicked on. All of the lights went out! I had overloaded the circuit and was left in the dark. Not knowing what to do and not speaking enough Korean to explain to anyone what had happened, I went out on the front steps to try to figure out what to do. The stars were out and the sky was black, even though it was only 6 p.m. After sitting there a moment, I realized why it was so dark. I had shut down the electrical circuit for the entire town! There was not a single light on in the city of Ui Jong Bu. Nothing to do but wait until it could be put back in order. Nothing to eat that night!