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From Gen. Colin Powell (US Army, ret.) in 2004:
2nd Bn, 48th Infantry, 3AD (Lt., 1958-60)
Below: Excerpts from his My American Journey autobiography,
published in 1995:
... And [in 1958] I was about to see the world. My first orders
sent me to the 3d Armored Division in West Germany. In that Cold
War era, when the globe seemed divided between white and red,
I was excited to be going to the front line, with our godless
communist adversary deployed just across the Iron Curtain.
... I was sent to Gelnhausen (which the G.I.'s had Americanized
to "Glen-haven"), a picturesque town nestled in the
valley of the Kinzig River, about twenty-five miles east of Frankfurt.
The Soviet zone was forty-three miles to the east. My unit, Combat
Command B of the 3d Armored Division, occupied Coleman Kaseme,
a former German army post near the Vogelsberg mountains, where
most of the troops lived in modem concrete barracks clinging
to the hillsides. I was assigned as a platoon leader to Company
B, 2d Armored Rifle Battalion, 48th Infantry, my first field
command - forty men.
... In those days, the Air Force and the Navy had nuclear
weapons, and so the Army had to have its nukes. Our prize was
a 280mm atomic cannon carried on twin truck-tractors, looking
like a World War I Big Bertha. The Russians obviously wanted
to know where our 280's were so that they could knock them out
if and when they attacked. Consequently, the guns were always
guarded by an infantry platoon as the trucks hauled them around
the German forests to keep the Soviets guessing. One day Captain
Miller [company commander] summoned me. He was assigning my platoon
to a secret mission. We had been selected to guard a 280. I eagerly
alerted my men. I loaded my .45 caliber pistol, jumped into my
jeep, and headed for battalion headquarters to be briefed. I
was excited; I was going to guard a weapon that fired a nuclear
warhead!
[Note: the book's editor unfortunately must have done some
cutting here, as there is no further description of the 280 mission.]
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