Me ’n’ Elvis ’n’ Nato (October 1991 | Volume: 42, Issue: 6)

Me ’n’ Elvis ’n’ Nato

AH article image

Authors:

Historic Era:

Historic Theme:

Subject:

October 1991 | Volume 42, Issue 6

Text Complexity Grade Level

9
logo2


In the spring of 1956 a kid out of Memphis with a greasy pompadour and a semipermanent sneer, who belted a raucous and rowdy brand of what was then known as rockabilly—a combination of Nashville country and gut-bucket Mississippi Delta blues—was drawing swarms of local belles to his appearances at the “Louisiana Hayride” in Shreveport. That, in turn, drew numerous lonely young airmen from nearby Barksdale Air Force Base, like sharks to schooling tuna.

Late one Saturday evening, after fruitless cruising at the Hayride, several other sharks and I stopped for a final cup of coffee at the Kickapoo Inn in Bossier City, just across the Red River from Shreveport. It was the last allnight café on the way out of the area, a final stop for truckers and travelers heading out.

As we sat bemoaning our lack of female companionship, a mob of honking cars roared into the parking lot, accompanied by the shrieks of what seemed to be several thousand teenage girls. The door burst open, and four hulking escorts entered, forming a wall around a somewhat flamboyant late-middle-aged man dressed like Burl Ives and a sallow, handsome kid in his late teens or early twenties.

Elvis Presley seemed polite, deferential to his elders, and gracious in signing autographs for the few fans who managed to evade the front-door security. As we finished our coffee, I looked toward his table, nodded, and raised my cup in a toast. He nodded in return and lifted his cup. My friends and I departed the Kickapoo and for several months regaled the local girls with imaginative tales of how we’d had coffee with Elvis himself ! Whether or not it was a successful ploy, we did seem to have better luck arranging dates.

Almost four years later, happily married and the father of two, I was assigned to a small Air Force weather detachment at Heidelberg Army Air Field in West Germany. Our job was to provide support to the Army and, when necessary, to deploy to the field and furnish weather data from primitive airstrips. In January 1960 the largest post-World War II military exercise yet held in Western Europe was scheduled under the title Winter Shield I. A quarter of a million troops from every nation in NATO were deployed across the sprawling Grafenw’f6hr armored training center near the East German border. For weeks in deep snow with low, threatening overcast and generally miserable conditions, we froze and worked around the clock, subsisting on C rations.

Finally, in some small act of compassion, the generals decided on a stand-down midway through the exercise. All the troops were staged into the main post at “Graf” for a hot shower, a change of clothes, and some hot food at the cavernous old Wehrmacht Kaserne (mess hall). My first order of business was a steaming shower, followed