Trent Ruble's Blog: The Other Way It Is - Posts Tagged "mac"

As I've said previously, I traveled frequently in the early 1980s as an aircraft loadmaster in the United States Air Force. For a young guy like me, this provided a great opportunity to see the world that I wouldn't have otherwise had. Many of our trips would take us to one of the several large Military Airlift Command (MAC) bases in Europe and, upon arriving in one of these great places, I would always want to see the sights. Most of the other enlisted crew members were only interested in finding the nearest bar, which just wasn't for me. So, I would frequently tag along with the officers who were much more inclined to be tourists. The officers were generally more established in life than I was so, many times, they would even let me ride in their rental car for free.

One such opportunity came when our crew stopped at Rhein Main Air Base near Frankfurt, Germany. After arriving at our hotel, I overheard the officers talking about going on a volksmarch in nearby Ansbach. A volksmarch, they explained, was a sort of walking tour and was very common in Germany. As I frequently did, I asked if I could go along and they agreed. The next day the officers rented a car from near the adjacent civilian airport and we all piled in. The car was a very small Alfa Romeo Alfasud like this one:



There were five of us, which means there must have been at least one other enlisted guy with us as we never carried that many officers (I can't remember who any of them were). I remember sitting in the middle of the very tight back seat. It wasn't comfortable but it was a small price to pay for the opportunity to explore Germany! Once we arrived in Ansbach, we proceeded to a sort of check-in area where we were given a map of the volksmarch and then just started walking. We walked through the city, the beautiful countryside, a small town and even a forest. The march was 10 kilometers of pure enjoyment. I loved seeing all the varied sights in such a short walk and the weather was perfect. When we finished, we were given a participation medal which, unfortunately, I have since lost.

After the walk it was time for the five of us to pile into the car again and head back to reality. The little overloaded Alfa was nearly maxed out as we zoomed down the autobahn at about 90 mph which, even at that speed, made us one of the slowest cars on the road. Just before we reached the airport, there was a loud bang. I looked behind us in time to see a cloud of smoke coming from the car as our speed slowed dramatically. At this point I was really glad my name wasn't on that rental contract! The officer driving just kept going, although much more slowly as the car couldn't regain its previous speed. At the airport he parked the car, returned the keys and we left without him telling them what had happened. I never heard if there were any consequences for this but, the following day, we boarded our aircraft and disappeared.