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I don't know: your story is interesting to me! Later in my career, I commanded an artillery battalion and I always hoped I'd find go-getters like you.

I only decided to tell that short story about my last day in combat to kind of record a piece of history.

Thanks, I appreciate your kind words. I was in an unique unit in Germany: a composite Chaparral/Towed Vulcan battalion, with batteries at Hahn, Spangdahlem, and Bitburg air bases. The battalion was deactivated over 20 years ago.

At Hahn, I was 40 miles away from Battalion HQ. During Air Force tac evals, I was down in the Wing CP for 4 days as the Army Liaison Officer. The only other officer with a TS clearance was the BC, so I was it.

Within 30 minutes of my first tac eval, they dropped an NBC input while I was briefing the Wing Cdr on the deployment of our platoons. His expert, the Wing Disaster Preparedness Officer, overreacted by recommending Alarm Red, which meant everybody had to go full MOPP.

You can imagine the looks I received when I spoke up to offer my recommendation...lol, an Army butterbar surrounded by 4-5 Air Force bird colonels. It was in my wheelhouse, as I was my battery's NBC officer. The Wing Cdr liked my recommendation so much (Alarm Yellow, no MOPP), he loudly told his staff that, as long as he was in command, he wanted to see the "Army lieutenant" whenever there was an NBC input.