Max Tritt, 3/11 ACR
  

"I was flying the border trace from North to South in an OH-58 when the tail rotor chip indicator came on requiring us to make an emergency landing.  The pilot busied himself with landing the bird as quickly as possible before  losing a tail rotor while I called in our location and the emergency  landing.  We made it down safely.  Seemingly out of nowhere a border guard appeared with his AK at port arms looking rather fiercely at us each time the main rotor would swing around invading his airspace by perhaps four inches.  We were busy shutting the bird down, trying to raise someone on the radio, while also looking at the perturbed BG.  All of a sudden the BG's face went ashen and his eyes as big as saucers.  I looked over to the right at my pilot ready to report the sudden change when we both heard over the radio "Need some help, little buddy?"   We both looked to the west to see an AH-1 Cobra hovering with his nose pointed at the BG."

Sam Carlson, Captain AUS (Ret)
  SFC, Border NCO, 2/11 (May 77- Oct 78)

Streaking on the Grenz

"During 1975 when streaking was in fashion,  one day our whole patrol decided to streak. All we had on was our LBE and steel pot. All the border guards hiding in the bushes came out to see what the Blackhorse, crazy Americans were doing.  I can imagine the spot report to their headquarters."

Oscar G. Figari, 3rd PLT, C Troop,  1/11 Cav

The OP Alpha Christmas Raid

"Christmas of 1982 was pretty dismal on OP Alpha. We all knew we would miss Christmas with our families. Small consolation was to be a tree trimming party on Christmas Eve where all wives and kids would come to the OP to trim the tree for a few hours. Problem was....no tree. Moral was getting low so 4 NCO's and myself launched "Operation Valkirye " on the night of December 22nd. This was a totally unofficial operation with the mission of liberating a Christmas tree from forests of East Germany.......yes the DDR. Fully armed with night vision goggles, rifles and of course an ax, myself and 2 NCO's set off with the third NCO holding down the border operations post back at the OP. Around the Tann pocket myself and one sergeant low crawled in with the other trooper in over watch. We were so pumped up we fell a 8 to 9 foot tree in about 3 swings of the ax. We drug it back to west and secured it to the top of the jeep with commo wire. The tree was a beauty and when word got out how we acquired it moral shot up. A follow up patrol was sent the next morning only to find a circle of East German Grenztruppen standing around the stump scratching their heads. When the Squadron commander asked where I got such a lovely tree I just smirked and said  something about having "German connections." 

- Joe Reeder, 1/11 ACR, 1981-1985

The Hard Rock OP

"One Sunday we set up a big stereo set at the OP and at 0530 in the morning the entire valley at the OP was blasted awake with Bruce Springsteen's Born in the USA. I miss those days in the 2/11 Cav!"

 - Stan Dodson, 2/11 ACR

The OP Hostage

"Herr Schmidt, the border camp handyman, when to one of the vacant OPs one day to do some maintenance work on the water pump. This particular OP sat just feet from the border in a remote area. Herr Schmidt went about his work in the pump shed but when he came out of the shed to get some more tools there were two East German border guards standing by the OP fence watching him. Herr Schmidt was so startled by the guards and convinced they were there to kidnap him that he locked himself inside the shed." 

- story related by SSG Jeff Jones

Halloween on the Trace

"I remember one foot patrol where one of the guys wore a Ronald Reagan Halloween mask as the patrol passed an East German guard tower. The border guards got quite a laugh out of it." 

  -  T.D. Prescott, 2/11 ACR, (1983 - 1986)

From the East German side at Marienborn:

"Every night we performed an alert check. All the vehicle barriers got closed within a few seconds. The control staff was responsible to keep the concerned areas clear during the test. When Allied forces went through the check point they had to leave their car and proceed to a Russian guardhouse. So right before the alert check the Russian soldier made the GI stay inside the guard house and reported his area clear for the alert check. When the test was done the GI was allowed to go back to his car and drive it to West Germany. But big surprise, he suddenly had a convertible. While the Russian took care of the GI, he forgot the car was parked right in the path of a moving vehicle barrier. The damn thing turned in from the right across the traffic lanes and knocked everything above the hood away. Good luck that nobody got injured. Don't know what happened to the poor Russian though."

  - Peter Grueschow , SiK Marienborn, 1987-1988

The GI Deception Plan

I was the OP Alpha tower NCO one day in 1976 watching the fence with another trooper. We decided to have some fun with the East German BGs. We set up the Starlight scope tripod  and put a section of rammer staff from our Sheridan on it. We also duct tape the 4x scope from the ground radar to it. When the BGs drove by we pointed the thing at them. They stopped  and looked through their binos and we quickly covered the device with a poncho. As they drove away we removed the poncho and pointed the device at them again. They stopped again and we covered it again. This went on for about 4 hours. By the end of our shift we had all kinds of things hanging from the rammer staff and there were about 30 BGs including a COL all with binos and cameras trying to figure out what we had.

- Arthur Arbuckle, SGT, C Trp 1/11 ACR Jan 76 to May 77

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