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Wertz came to the battalion while we were deployed at Grafenwoehr. It was one of those times when a cold winter has started to melt into a raw, wet spring such as only can be found in Germany. He processed in at Babenhausen and caught the next shuttle to Grafenwoehr. He joined the battery in the field and was assigned to Sergeant Wilson's gun section.
Wertz was one of those people that never seem to fit in with an established unit. He was one of those stocky, red-haired guys that you can just look at and see trouble. Not big trouble, but the little stuff that gets on your nerves. He came to us from Fort Carson, where he had been a gunner, a position normally held by a Sergeant. Because our personnel priorities were higher, he found that he couldn't just step into the Sergeant's position he was accustomed to, and he didn't like it very much.
Captain Barnaby and First Sergeant Shaw decided that Sergeant Wilson's section would be a good place for this cocky young trooper. Sergeant Wilson was a little older than the other section chiefs, having served three tours in Nam and having tried civilian life on for size. He found it didn't suit him very well. He came back in the Army three years and two wives later, minus a couple of stripes, but gaining a fatherly outlook that some of his younger peers hadn't had the opportunity to develop. If anyone could help Wertz fit into the battery, it would be Wilson.
Wertz caught a ride to the battery position in the field on the supply truck. The battery was set up on a hillside firing point, the four 175mm guns peering from the tree-line and the rest of the equipment spread throughout the sparse woods further up the hill. About 500 meters downrange, the hillside dropped off about 40 feet over a run of about 100 meters, with the area below covered with dense brush. Further down, the hillside dropped off again and the trees took over once again. This dead space just below the battery was a perfect avenue of approach for infiltrators, and First Sergeant Shaw posted observation posts just below the crest of the first drop-off.
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