perfidy

In my era, there were three locales in Germany that you were either preparing (and perhaps dreading) to go back to, just returning from, or in the midst of suffering through: Wildflecken, Hohenfels, and Grafenwoehr . Wildflecken was the least-improved and smallest of the three; Hohenfels was traditionally the spot for force-on-force maneuver. Graf was a series of firing ranges, from small arms to tank guns to anti-tank missiles.

Graf was not only a place to be cold in, bitch about, or not get laid at. It was a place of contradictions, of dichotomies peculiar to federal agencies or major military organizations: the training areas and ranges were all heavily wooded and accessible by dirt road ("tank trail") or helicopter, making everything seem distant and private, but the whole facility exists right next to a small fairy-tale of a town. Monstrous machines of war went from range to range, their crews perfecting their deadly trade, but everything stopped if a boar sow and her brood crossed the road in front of them. It was possible to be wet and sleepless for days on end as you trained for battle, but do bring your clubs because there's a golf course on the main post.

And now we can add a new contradiction: Russians at Graf. Stars & Stripes has coverage here of the first joint live-fire training in Germany between Russian and American forces.

Wildflecken and Graf had the ranges to train for repulsing invading Russian hordes, while Hohenfels had the physical space to simulate maneuvering against Russian hordes. Who'd a thunk that instead of invading, the Russian hordes would be invited?