My life in West Germany - Part I

It's all over the news...10th anniversary of the Fall of Communism! Wonderful timing because in my World Geography class, we are just getting into our next unit, Europe. Part of my Europe lesson is what appears to be just telling the kids about my life over there, but I do happen to touch on major concepts & vocabulary from the unit. I do show them actual photos of me in Germany and the places throughout Europe I had the opportunity to travel to while there. I will try to post those photos here as well.
I'm a Cold War kid and lived on this side of the Iron Curtain in West Germany for 7 years of my youth. At the time, of course, I had no idea what it meant and that my day to day existence would become part of history AND that I'd finally come to understand it. I was in Germany from October '75 til summer '82. My father was in the army and he served two tours of duty there back to back plus an extension. When I got there, I was in 4th grade and when I left, I was going into 10th.
My father's first duty station over there was Frankfurt, Germany and my sister & I attended Frankfurt Elem. School #1. The school was an American school and all the children of the servicemen attended it. The housing area was not on a base with fence and gates, it was in the middle of the German community. The baseball field was right outside the window of our apartment and on the other side of the field was the school.
There was a DYA (Dependent Youth Activities) center nearby as well. A DYA is kind of like a YMCA. You can be in sports or take dance or gymnastics classes. My sister and I took ballet. We were also in girl scouts. When family from "the States" came to visit, we'd take them sightseeing.
One of the places we usually took people to was Dacau, a concentration camp. I was too young to realize the significance of it at the time, I was only 9-11 years old. I think we went there 3 times. It was kind of boring to me then. Although now, the magnitude of being on the grounds really affects me. I remember seeing nuns sitting on benches outside the museum part of the camp crying. One time we saw Sammy Davis Jr. and his entourage entering the camp as we were leaving. Someone asked him what he was doing there and tried to get an autograph and he said he was paying his respects. He was not there to be recognized as a celebrity. BTW, for those that don't know, he is Jewish.
After three years in Frankfurt, we could have gone back to the states, but my father had to serve one more tour of duty overseas, so he signed up for another tour in Germany, but it was in Stuttgart. So, we moved to Southern Germany. I was going into 7th grade and entered Boeblingen Juinor High. The military community was on a closed base called Alexander M. Patch Barracks. You could only enter with military I.D. The entire base was fenced. On the base was a clinic, movie theater, bowling alley, gym, liquor store, library, beauty salon, Post Exchange, commissary, football and baseball fields, DYA, Officers Club, pizza & ice cream parlor, barracks for the single soldiers, and housing for the officers. It was mostly an Officer's base, I think. My dad was a specialist in the Russian language which he learned for one year in Ft. Ord, California, prior to us moving overseas. I remember his stacks and stacks of note cards to learn the language, the books, tapes, and him practicing writing. He taught us a few words and showed me how to write my name in Russian. Of course, I was oblivious to how "cold war" all of this was.