Prolific Art Concepts
by Jeffrey A. Nord, Sergeant First Class (Retired Reserves)
May to June 1989: I was really busy processing NCOERs (Non-Commissioned Officer Evaluation Reports). Normally, I processed between 15-30 NCOERs per month. In June 1989, I had to process over 110 reports. The reason was because, in 1988, the Army converted to a different personnel evaluation rating system, from EERs (Enlisted Evaluation Reports) to NCOERs (Non-Commissioned Officer Evaluation Reports). The conversion was staggered for each rank, with First Sergeants and the CSM being converted in one month, then Sergeants First Class the next month, followed by Staff Sergeants, then Sergeants. This caused nearly every NCOER in the battalion to be due within a 4-month period.
I had to stay late at the office several times and usually worked 14-18 hours a day and many weekend days. A couple of times, I worked all night long and the next day, as well. It all paid off though, because the Battalion Commander gave me a 23rd Engineer Battalion “Coin of Excellence” right before his PCS (Permanent Change of Station) to Hohenfels, Germany.
June 30, 1989: Our battalion had a big change of command ceremony and parade for him and the incoming Battalion Commander, LTC Elmer James Mason. All enlisted Soldiers hate going to these, because they have to stand at parade rest for hours! I didn’t have to go to the ceremony, because I had CQ (Charge of Quarters) the night before and got the next day off to sleep. It was the last day of June.
We got a new Company Commander also, CPT Buning. He was a pretty good guy who seemed fair and reasonable to me. He was a tri-athlete and went to the U.S. Olympic Trials for the triathlon, but, supposedly, missed a spot on the team by one or two places. He was a strong advocate for PT and made us run about 6 miles a day. However, it didn’t seem like we ran that far, because of the way we did it.
First we ran for a mile in a slow jog, in formation, from our barracks on Hessen-Homburg Kaserne through some Hanau streets, leading to a bike path that passed over a highway.
Next, we stopped on the highway overpass, which was a mile from our barrack,s and did our push-ups and sit-ups there.
Then, we ran as fast as we could for 15 minutes toward Fliegerhorst Kaserne. At the end of 15 minutes, we stopped, turned around and ran 15 minutes back to the overpass. If everyone ran their own steady pace the whole way, they would all end up at the overpass at the same time. I was one of the faster runners in our company and would usually make it to Fliegerhorst Kaserne right at the 15-minute mark. Below is a map of our usual route.
July 5, 1989: We had a Health and Welfare Inspection, because somebody in the battalion put a block of C-4 plastic explosive under a German bridge. Luckily, it wasn’t detonated. Someone found it, the MPs were alerted and they traced the lot number on the C-4 to our battalion. We had to stop working in the office for the rest of the day, so we could search everywhere on the kaserne. We were locked in all day and nobody could leave the gate. The search was very thorough and took a long time. They eventually found the guy who planted the C-4 and they also put seven other Soldiers in jail for having live ammo, duds or parts of military firearms in their wall lockers.
July 12, 1989: We had a pre-inspection for the battalion command inspection, which was on July 21st. This inspection looked at single Soldier sleeping quarters (barracks), as well as work areas, to include my office.
July 21, 1989: We had a Battalion Command Inspection on this day. During the inspection, they randomly selected 20% of the company to take the APFT. I was one of the 20%. I did 71 pushups, 61 sit-ups and ran two miles in 11 minutes, 54 seconds. My total score was 274 out of 300.
August 6, 1989: We rode a bus to Grafenwoehr to fire M16s.
August 7, 1989: Today we went to the firing range and:
1. Zeroed our weapons - This involved firing 3 rounds, checking the shot pattern on the target, adjusting the weapon’s sight alignment (up, down, left or right), firing 3 more rounds, checking that shot pattern, adjusting sight alignment again (if needed), then firing 3 more rounds to confirm (for a total of 9 rounds). If we weren’t convinced we had a good zero after that, we could fire additional 3-round groups until we felt the alignment was as good as it was going to get or until a total of 18 rounds were fired, whichever came first.
2. Qualified on our M-16 Rifle – I shot 27 out of 40 (Marksman) pop-up targets. The range’s pop-up targets, especially the closer ones, were so riddled with holes, they wouldn’t go down when we shot them. So, the graders gave extra points (sometimes), because many targets didn’t fall when they were supposed to.
3. Shot Night Fire – We shot at pop-up targets at night. The range personnel gave us 20 or 30-round magazines that included tracers every third round. It was quite a display when about 30 Soldiers open-fired on the targets. It was almost like fireworks.
August 8, 1989: I wrote my Dad a letter from Grafenwoehr Training Area.
August 11, 1989: We went to Hohenfels Training Area until August 25, 1989.
September 13-20, 1989: We got on a bus and went to a field training exercise, somewhere in Bavaria, called “Caravan Guard”. The exercise only lasted a week, but I think we ended up in the field for most of September.
11-28 January, 1990: We went on a REFORGER field training exercise, called “Centurion Shield ‘90” somewhere in Bavaria.
February 10, 1990: last week, I took my annual SQT (Skills Qualification Test), along with all of the trained Personnel Administrative Specialists in my section. I outscored everyone with a 78. A score of 60 was the minimum required to pass. It was really a tough test. It took two months to receive the results.
February 17, 1990: I took some pictures around Hanau and Frankfurt.
One PFC got an Article 15 the previous week for walking out of a formation of 4 people. His punishment was just one week of extra duty – no money was taken. One sergeant in our section told him to come to the office after formation and the other sergeant, who led the formation, told him to stand fast. He walked off.
Also last week, a corporal and I got in trouble with our supervisor, who’s a former drill sergeant. We left the office while he was gone and the next day, he wrote counseling statement on us. He gave me verbal “wall-to-wall” counseling and wouldn’t let me sign the counseling statement, saying he would just take this matter to the commander. I took a copy of it, while he wasn’t looking, and sent a copy to my dad.
Normally, our section must stay past 5 pm. On this day, the new First Sergeant said “We will all take Spearhead” (meaning to get done working at 3:15 pm). The corporal and a bunch of other people heard him say it. Anyway, I did clean the office, by myself even, but it must not have been to his standard. Oh well, I thought the whole thing was pretty funny. The corporal is now a specialist, like me, and now he can help me clean the office. By the way, I left the office at 3:30 after cleaning up.
February 20, 1990: Our old First Sergeant, 1SG Ron Pasco, was put in charge of our section as the PAC Supervisor. It was an unexpected, but pleasant surprise; unexpected, because the position he was filling was normally filled by a SFC (one grade lower than his rank); and pleasant, because he was a good leader with common sense, unlike his predecessor.
February 21, 1990: We had CTT (Common Task Training). It was pretty easy – find points on a map, put on our gas masks, do weapons safety checks and basic Soldier stuff.
March 1, 1990: After over a year of processing NCOERs, I began doing Promotions instead.
March 6, 1990: I was supposed to be going before the E-5 promotion board, but I wasn’t ready. There was a lot of stuff to study – a whole book. With all the work I had, I didn’t have much time to study. I decided to go in April instead.
April 1990: I went to the E-5 promotion board, which was a very formal affair. I had to report, in Class A uniform, to our Battalion Command Sergeant Major (CSM) and four Company First Sergeants. The first things the CSM made me do were to balance on each leg, with the other leg stuck out in the air, hold each arm out, one at a time, and do some weird facing movements. After a few minutes of that, I started to really wonder what was going on with this board. I thought maybe it was some kind of mind game or was some kind of weird ritual we had to go through before passing the board. Right after that, I felt very relieved to hear the CSM say the reason for all the weird movements was that they wanted to see how my uniform fit. That calmed down, after freaking out a little, and I was able to answer most of the board questions. I came out of there with pretty good scores.
October 28, 1990: I only had 14 days and a wake-up (one night) before flying back to the States. On this day, I wrote a letter to my dad about my time in Germany. Below is an excerpt from that letter:
"Alot has happened, since I came to Germany in November 1988. I’ve been close to where all the action is in Europe, where the Cold War ended and the Berlin Wall came down. I got a piece of the Berlin Wall from a Captain who went there (I don’t know where it is now). I’ve seen the effects of the Gulf crisis on the diversion of troops in Europe. Some units in Hanau already deployed. There has been talk of 3rd Armored Division, 23rd Engineer Battalion’s Major Command, going to Saudi to replace the 6-month rotation of troops there now. I’ve done some sightseeing in Salzburg and Innsbruck, Austria, and other places in Germany. I’ve golfed in Garmisch (Southern Bavaria), Heidelberg, where the Generals play, and Wiesbaden, the usual golfing spot at Rheinblick Golf Club."
