Chapter I, The Beginning
In 1967 I received my overseas discharge from the US Army, in Baumholder, Germany. i had saved up plenty of money with my soldier's deposit account so I did not have to work while oveseas. I had an army sleeping bag, a pup tent; a few pairs of jeans, socks, some shirts, an army field jacket, and not much more because I planned on doing a lot of hiking and hitch hiking to live on the cheap.
In 1967 I received my overseas discharge from the US Army, in Baumholder, Germany. i had saved up plenty of money with my soldier's deposit account so I did not have to work while oveseas. I had an army sleeping bag, a pup tent; a few pairs of jeans, socks, some shirts, an army field jacket, and not much more because I planned on doing a lot of hiking and hitch hiking to live on the cheap.
At that time there was a book titled "Europe On 41.50 A Day '. I t had listings for all of the cheapest hostels, restraunts, and things of that nature. Actually I would later find out that I could live for fifty cents a day in some countries such as Spain where you could buy a bottle of wine for ten cents, a loaf of wonderful loaf of pan [spanish for bread], a good meal for thirty five cents, a subway ride for a nickel, a cup of cafe con leche in a sidewalk cafe for a dime, just to show a few examples of how low the prices were.
Europe at that time was really buzzing with tourists composed of hippies, draft dodgers, radicals, artists, students, and just about any type of character that lived at that time. The Viet NamUS War was going full blast and they were "melting down the church bells to make cannon". There was a lot of anti war sentiment amoung the natives and the tourist alike.
I was one of the anti war people. My battery commander used to call me hippie. One of my duties as battery clerk was to be the battery commander's jeep driver when we went to the field, for training excerises for our artillery battery of 155mm self propelled howitzers. One day in the field during firing practice the first sergeant, the battery commander, and I were watching phosporus round explode from a hill top. The CO said how beautiful the rounds lookedto him. I mentioned that they should fill the rounds with flowers instead of phosporus when they exploded. That is how I got my nickname.
Finally I boarded the train in Frankfurt Germany heading to Malaga, Spain. From Malaga I intended to take the ferry to Tangiers, Morocco. My dream had become reality, finally. reality
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