May 23, 2006 16:10
Wow where to start. I just got back from Europe. Great trip. First we landed in Hamburg Germany and set off for Munster and the GD treffen. Got to the Deutches Haus and had my first brew in germany. I love the deutches Haus bitburger and warsteiner on tap with no sign of crap beer. This hotel has been our overseas home since 1999. They cater to us and are very hospitable. Capasso and i were the translators as we were the only two that spoke german from the group. We met various vets and hung out with them over the 4 days we stayed there. Friday we met up with Hed Gerbner and we gave him a plaque with his medals and photo on it. One of him during the war. He started to cry when he saw it. we all stood up and applauded him and he said thank you to us. He said thank you to GD usa cause we are the only people who remember the german soldiers and their soldier traditions. On saturday the Treffen (reuinion) came we started with a lunchin with the vets provided by the bundeswere (german army) We sat and talked with many vets, and the bundeswere let us go into thier modern leapord 2a6 tanks. Sat night we got our suits on and went to the formal dinner. Very nice many speeches and capasso gave our speach to the vets. They applauded us and we handed out steins and plaques to the vets and gave flowers to thier wives. We left the treffen about 10:45 and back to the hotel for the post treffen party. We stayed up till around 4 am everyone got drunk and had a great time drinking and singing with the vets. Sunday we went to a memorial ceremony that marks the end of the treffen. Very nice, wreaths were laid over GD monuments at the panzer truppen schule. We had lunch said our good byes and then some of us had to hurry off to change and head off to the "long" trip which included germany, belgium and france. More to come in that. All in all i loved seeing the Panzer museum again. So many origional ww2 tanks all still run!!! There are also so many origional uniforms and such that make me laugh at these reenactors that tell people they have the wrong color of wrong weave. I saw about 100 origional unis while overthere and hardly two were exact. Some people need to relize why they reenact german. GD know why we do this and its because of the vets. I think we look pretty damn good after seeing all i saw over there. Reenacting isnt about clothes or weapons or being uber hardcore, its about those men we met with. Those men who are in thier 80's now and we lose some of them everyday. If you dont relize this in any war you portray you need to stop reenacting cause the vets is what its all about. How i love them all!! Well gotta run I'll tell more about the trip tomarrow.