Connecting the Troopers of Today with the Veterans of Yesterday.

Border Plaque, crossings, or just things you threw across the fence!!!

I was getting close to being short and wanted one of the plaques, you know the ones on the red,black and yellow pole.

I wonder what one would be worth now days, too bad I lost it(5th Amendment), lol.
We use to shoot bottle rockets and throw glow in the dark Frisbee's over the fence, and rocks between the two fences to see if we could set-off a land mine.
Yep guard duty can be pretty boring.

Replies to This Discussion

Permalink Reply by Robb Russell on December 17, 2008 at 5:56pm

Hubba Bubble Bubble gum, my belt buckle they( threw it back) and my beret when they were taken away from us.

Permalink Reply by howard maxwell tritt on December 17, 2008 at 10:45pm

At one point Penthouse or Hustler or some other rag featured this obese pig as their centerfold. We went down by the Pink Kaserne, stood on the hood of the jeep ans flashed this sow to the guys in the tower. You should've seen thenm scrambling up the ladder & fighting over the scope. It was hilarious. You could get alot more creative up north on the DDR border because the fences were right there. We'd throw snowballs, apples, oranges, or anything we had to try to trip the sensors in the fence. A glow in the dark frisbee? That's creative!

Permalink Reply by Sean Dubee on December 18, 2008 at 6:02am

Do Radboros count?

What would be fun is a story about your coolest border invention. Like mortar tube carrier super binoculars fixed up with jeep mirrors and the like.

Permalink Reply by howard maxwell tritt on January 25, 2010 at 10:53pm

How about a head set "plugged" into a PVS-5 box. It was used (in plain view of DDR towers) to locate a previously emplaced "device". The device was observed by GAKs who had been trucked & humped into location. I think they eyeballed the device for about 2-3 days. The device consisted of the inner foil wrapper of a Kit-Kat bar with 2 paperclips topped by pencil erasers to serve as antennae. Upon locating the device, it would promptly be picked up and eaten- in plain view.

Permalink Reply by David Zawicki on December 20, 2008 at 11:10pm

If you ever find out what its worth, please let me know....I also have a 1KM Zone sign in the garage, as well as a DDR Flag I "aquired" shortly after the wall went down in 1989.

Permalink Reply by Anthony G. Harrison on November 26, 2009 at 8:17pm

I also have a 1K sign and a HALT HEIR GRENZE sign in my posession! Gather while on patrol when the wall was coming down..
If I can sell these items I will!.

Permalink Reply by Don Pfoutz on January 9, 2009 at 4:17pm

One night, I believe it was our last night that E Troop had, the radar team went out with a jeep and trailer, and for shits and giggles we took our flash units and cameras. Well about 11.30 or thereabouts we got happy with the towers and flashed the border RIGHT after the Robur patrol departed the 'visual' AO. (We were at The Slab and had a long wide field, while the other side had some treed areas. With five of the damned flashes going off, sometimes in sequence, sometimes all-to-gether, we had the border guards going freaking crazy. The damned Robur and then one of the WarPact trucks (2 1/2t or 3t roughly) would rush back and out would boil a platoon, run about doing 'army shit', then drive off. We would wait 1 to 5 minutes then pop the flashes and the towers would pop flares and the trucks would rush back.

We got bored/tired of playing with them about 2AM.

Any E Troopers remember Clavijo the Columbian and the UFO? Bloo and Jello lights!

Permalink Reply by Stephen (STEVE-O) Bowen on January 10, 2009 at 11:06pm

Pulled a Joint Night Patrol w/the BGS in one of their nice HEATED VW vans. We pulled into a nice overlook position, cut the lights and crept up to the Border and threw some smokes and a couple of skin-mags over and went back to wait. About an hour later we saw a foot patrol coming up on the goodies.(We were using NVG's) Right when the patrol started to grab the stuff, the Rad Lt in charge hits his Spotlight,Siren, and Friggin'Blue dome Light! He got on his bullhorn yelled something -Talk about deer in the headlights!! We spent the rest of the patrol at this little Gasthaus laughing and drinking bier und apfelkorn!! Gotta love those Guys!! That was the first time I saw an HK MP-5 or the VP-70.

Permalink Reply by James M Campbell on November 12, 2014 at 8:59pm

BGS patrol was a fun thing got the chance to walk the grenze with them ny radio didnt work so no como check next to a cliff the yelled at the gaks flipped them off loved the patrol

Permalink Reply by Robert D King on February 1, 2009 at 1:46pm

When inspecting the border markers, special orders said" Do not under any circumstances set foot across the border" With toes on our side, pissing on the other side was a hoot!

Permalink Reply by Richard Spell on February 6, 2009 at 2:42pm

During one particular patrol briefing, 1Lt Pete Brigham informed us that Genuine Russians were known to be manning a tower (one of the square ones) periodically. He wanted me to "make something happen" to see what their reaction might be. He gave me a box of assorted star clusters with strict instructions to keep them on our side of the grenz. We knew which colors meant something to the DDR side, so I fired off the appropriate colors with no reaction from the other side. After a couple of tries, I decided to pop some at the tower, but still nothing happened...I guess they weren't home. I can't remember who all was on that patrol...Camacho, my driver, and Dave Roe were, I believe. Lt.Brigham was disappointed, and we didn't tell him about shooting over the border.

Permalink Reply by David P Fritz on November 28, 2010 at 4:21am

I know of a story by a couple of P-funk's of mine (Kelly Killian and Dave Sauls) where they were on a patrol ( east -G or czhecko) not sure , in which they momentarily got away from the rest of the patrol ( at night ) and took two shots at a street light. First one missed and second one got it. They took a hell of chance with that! They were private first class at that time too!How the patrol leader never found out ,I'll never know. There must have been a train going by I guess?I suppose they put the spent casings down in the bottom of the magazines before they turned them back in to the arms room...lol. I did not see any reason not to believe them. We were all close friends.