[muawiyah]

No, Army IDs were OK for going both ways, or even through Italy to Austria, and on a guided commercial tour, you could go from Deutschland to Italia to FYR! (I think that was Slovenia ~ ).

Anyway, didn't smart mouth the guy. Just that he couldn't read my three-day pass (which I had to have along with my ID).

This was a young border guard guy on a Sunday afternoon ~ probably doing overtime.

They'd had some trouble with German speaking Italians at the time, so the border guards were touchy.

Turnedout the guard knew German, he knew Italian, he knew Serbo-Croat, and some other Slavic languages, but he didn't know English.

My German was "bad" ~ but my Latin was much better, and so was his.

Explanations were figured out, his machine pistol went back over his shoulder, and I was released to cross over into Germany.

Lots of fun. Only other time I ever had to use Latin was in Luxembourg at a gas station.

My Latin is now quite rusty.

[tonycavanagh]

re ;No, Army IDs were OK for going both ways, or even through Italy to Austria, and on a guided commercial tour, you could go from Deutschland to Italia to FYR! (I think that was Slovenia ~ ).

LOL just more proof about one rule for the Yanks and another for us Brits.

When were you out there my tour in West Germany was 1985 to 1987.

Based in Dortmund

[flushed with pride]

Latin itself is quite rusty. You mean that Latin is still actually spoken somewhere in the world? I was under the impression that, outside of the Catholic church, it ceased to be in use some time ago.