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I learned something about "authority" at Graf. It's "power in a circumstance". The surveyors had a unique kind of authority on a job. Our life with the 79th at Graf in 73 was just like the movie MASH. Mine was even better because I was attached from the 24th Group and nobody knew what the hell I was there for, including me. I couldn't believe it. So I just went with the surveyors Kogut and Earle. And the lifers didn't mess with us too much because we could really fuck things up by only a few inches. There was just too much at stake for their careers. And we knew it, and so we never left them hanging. What we had going for us was just to important to fuck it up for them. Our work ethic was outstanding. But we partied like it was 1999 - and we got over big time. The problem for me was it actually became 1999 before I knew it. Whew ...

Hey, we did our jobs great, we were loyal patriots, and they all knew it. We just tweeked it our own way a little. And that's why we got to go places like the French Riviera, and to be AWOL now and then, and just get a dirty look.

We wouldn't have even been AWOL if Earle's VW Bus was able to get over the Alps faster. Going up hill was tough with that thing. And there are lots of hills in Switzerland. Who would have thunk it.

Somewhere on the Italian Riviera.

Earl, Kogut, Nord, Ray Gilkey, Me, and the Italian babe with missing teeth and club toes, who we picked up hitch-hiking in Milan. She stayed with us for three days.

The Italian Babe.

This was really funny. Earl can't believe it! NO, nobody did anything with her. We were grossed out. She didn't speak any English. She just stayed with us, and wouldn't leave us alone, for three days. She kind of adopted us like a mother hen and protected us from getting ripped off when we bought stuff at the market.

When we were heading back to Germany and driving through Milan again, we got to a place where she started rapping like a crazy lady on the door saying something in Italian. We stopped. She got out. She walked away. We drove away. It was the same spot where we picked her up.

We had a hell of a lot of responsibility as surveyors. After all, it was up to us to transfer what the Officers had on their blueprints to the ground. That's why they gave us more slack than the normal grunts. By the time the Maintenance Complex job began, Kogut was getting short, and the pressure and frustration was getting to him.