It’s a Small World

Have you ever had one of those experiences? You go somewhere completely foreign, and unexpectedly meet someone that you either know from back home or meet a new friend that has a tie to you back home?

I’ve had several of these experiences in my life the most recent of which was this past weekend where my wife and I while on vacation with the family both ran into people that we haven’t seen in literally 20 years. But the most memorable one for me occurred while I was stationed in Germany with C Troop 1/1 Cavalry 1st Armored Division.

I was fresh out of basic, boot camp for you marine types out there, and at my first duty assignment as a Cavalry Scout. Man I loved that job, we got to do it all there, and we even patrolled the East German and Czechoslovakian borders. Yes I’m dating myself here; bonus points if anyone can tell me what year this was.

Well, it was a small unit and I quickly became friends with another soldier named Jeff. Jeff was a mortar man 11C and assigned to Headquarters Company (HHC). It must have been 2 months or so that we had known each other and amazingly the topic of hometowns had not come up before. So there we were, yeah I know all war stories start that way, sitting around in the dayroom at the Camp Pitman when the topic finally came up. I usually told everyone that I was from Washington DC because, well, I learned no one knew where my home town was. Anyway, several of us are talking and I mention “I’m from Washington DC.” To which Jeff replies, “No kidding I’m from near there and I even went to college in DC.
Where do you live?”

Are you kidding someone from around the area! “Actually,” I begin, “I’m not from D.C I just say that cause no one knows where Frederick is and I end up saying D.C. Everyone knows where D.C. is”

To which he once again replies, “No kidding, I’m from Frederick too.”

WTF over, another Fredericktonian here, in Germany? “No kidding what school did you go to? I went to TJ.” “FHS.” He replies. By now not only were we both looking a little shocked but so was everyone else in the group. Jeff turned out to be a great friend and it was sad leaving him to PCS to Ft. Bliss and the 3rd ACR, but we ran into each other again before he left the Army for good. He had gotten assigned to an Infantry unit at Ft. Lewis, WA and his unit had come to the wonderful beachfront properly known as Ft. Bliss for some war games. We kicked their ass, but it was good seeing him again.

Jeff and I stay in touch to this day and I even worked for him for a couple years before I moved on to my current job. He had called me out of the blue after I quit my 13 year job at the hospital and offered me a good job working for him in a start up computer game company. I mean how could I refuse, doesn’t every guy want to work at a computer game company and get paid bazillions of dollars to play games 15 hours a day? LOL