Preserving The Oral HistorIES of Combat Veterans
2:51 | While stationed in Cold War Germany, George Carrigan met a German girl and they planned to get married. When he talked to the chaplain, he was asked if he realized he was consorting with the enemy. This did not deter him.
Keywords : George Carrigan German re-enlist chaplain married post office
It was hard to find a job after World War II with all the returning service members out there doing the same. George Carrigan and two buddies went to enlist in the Army but all the recruiters were out for lunch except the Air Force. He talked them into signing up and forgetting about their paratrooper dreams.
The class before his and the class after his were all sent to Korea but George Carrigan's entire class of radar maintenance technicians were sent to Germany. He found it to be much like America in some ways but it was also the front line in the Cold War.
The war damage had been cleaned up on the free side of the Berlin Wall but the other side looked pretty bad, according to radar technician George Carrigan. His unit operated and maintained the ground control radar and control towers at the air base in Erding. He recalls when a secret U2 reconnaissance plane made an emergency landing.
