back when I was in the Army, I had just moved to my first duty station in Bad Krueznach, Germany. Within a few weeks, we prepared for and started REFORGER 1988 (if you don't know what REFORGER was, it was a acronym for "Return of Forces to Germany" and was a full-scale battle simulation maneuver exercise that was done live across the German countryside as if the Allied armies were indeed facing off against a Soviet aggressor. It involved deploying not only military assets stationed in Germany, but redeploying a full division of military assets that were stationed out of theatre (in the US).

1988 was the largest every European ground maneuver and included 125,000 troops deployed.

Anyway, with that in mind, the idea was to create a 'real world' scenario for how troops would react and deploy across Germany. One key issue of course being personal hygiene. Now infantry guys and tankers, they tend to be less picky about this, but aviators, we like to have some place to shower where the water is warm and plentiful.

So, for our aviation company, the LT in charge of finding a bathing facility went into the local village, hit up the village mayor, and contracted for the use of the local bath house for our company of nearly 120 Army aviation soldiers. Everyone was allowed to 'bathe' at least every other day.

One evening, our little platoon had been out for six hours straight, flying, refueling, flying, refueling, flying, refueling until we were stiff and tired of wearing MOP gear, and really NEEDED a shower. So when we got back, we found out that the truck was just about to leave with a couple of our crew chiefs.

Now, using a bath house in Germany is a little different. It's PUBLIC. Meaning our contract didn't prevent the locals from still coming in. And more important is that a bath house is basically a heated hot tub where everyone just gets in. So, we tried to time our visits for when there was less of the locals around and figured 8pm was good. So here we are, 8 aviation officers, a couple crew chiefs soaking in the tub, goofing off, when we hear voices, female voices. And before we can get out, in walk 5 'older' German women who hang their towels on the wall and just drop into the bath with us... in their birthday suits of course.

One by one, we all smiled and worked our way out of the bath and to the locker room to change and head back. One of our guys spoke German, so he struck up a convo, and was the last one out telling us that they ladies had nothing but compliments.