The war stories one rarely hears about.
MEMORIAL DAY by Victor Swatsek
I will always salute ALL my brothers and sisters, in every branch of the military service, especially for the ones who never made it home. I know there are people who never recover from losing a loved one in any type of war or by just being in the military. However, we must not forget service people who are killed or maimed in simple military maneuvers at home, as well as in a foreign land.
I still vividly remember the time when I was in the Army on administrative field maneuvers in Ingolstadt, Germany, which is on the picturesque Danube River. It was a perfect day for a field exercise. The air was warm, and the sky was blue. I was in Company “E,” 10th Engineers, Third Infantry Division and in one of seven ARCE (Amphibious River Crossing Equipment) bridge units in all of Europe. This particular unit was used to create a bridge to connect both sides of a river that was too deep for military vehicles to cross. Their sole mission was to get, soldiers, trucks, jeeps, and tanks to the other side. In my particular unit, there were about twenty ARCE’s, each approximately seventy-five feet long, with eight feet diameter wheels that required the help of a crane to change a simple flat. I can’t tell you how many building corners, were destroyed as these monstrous machines went lumbering through the towns to get to their final destination. They could span a river a thousand feet across. If it were wider than that, another company from a different region in Europe would come to assist.
I was a pilot for a “two-piece” twenty-foot motorboat, which was used to patrol downriver. Once the ARCE’s were in the river, my job was to make sure that if any of the crew-members on those ARCE’s fell overboard into the river, I would have to fish them out as quickly as possible. Even though they all wore loud, orange-colored life vests, it had to be done speedily because the Danube River moved very fast. If you didn’t pick up the crew-member within just a few minutes, it would be difficult to find them, even though they all wore life jackets. We used to joke that if we didn’t find the crew-member quickly enough, he would be halfway to Czechoslovakia before they picked him up.
We were informed that day that a General from the Third Division was going to stop by and review our company and the process. This young soldier, maybe twenty years old, drove his 2 ? ton truck slowly down the driveway-like ramp into the Danube River to wash it. Suddenly his brakes got wet and slipped, which pulled the truck down the ramp too far and into the River. Nobody sensed that he had a problem until they saw the water level start rising over the window level. The pressure of the river forced the driver’s side door to stay closed, and he couldn’t push it open. We think he panicked, and couldn’t get to the passenger side of the truck quick enough. By the time they could get a crane to pull him out of the water.....he was dead. We surmised his panic, caused him to have a heart attack….. and he was only washing his truck.
What made it unforgettable was it happened on my birthday, March 15th in 1967. I will never forget that day and how it happened. And now, every year on my birthday, I remember the young soldier, who died so he could have a clean truck for the General to review. I also remember him on Memorial Day.
These are the war stories one rarely hears about.