Ryan+M.+&+Christian+S.+-+Dale+Zartman

__Biographical__: 1. Where did you grow up? 2. What time period did you grow up in? 3. Did you grow up wanting to be in the military? 4. Was there any fears of the Soviets where you lived as you were growing up? 5. Did you have any siblings? If yes: Were they in the service? 6. What did you do before entering the service? 7. What did your parents do for work? 8. Did you get drafted or volunteer? 9. What were your parents thoughts about you being in the military?

__Early Days of Service__: 10. What was it like when you first got to where you were getting trained? 11. What was basic training like? 12. Was training physically demanding? 13. What was your drill sergeant like? 14. What were the conditions at your training base? 15. What did you eat during training? 16. What was your schedule like during training? 17. Did you make friends quickly? 18. How soon did you split off into your MOS’s? 19. How did you become an MP? 20. Why did you decide to become an MP? 21. Did you want to become an MP at first? 22. What was your specialized training like to become a MP? 23. Was it tough being away from your family?

__Wartime Service__: 24. When were you first deployed? 25. Where were you first deployed? 26. What was it like when you were first deployed? 27 What were the conditions there? 28. How was the journey there? 29. What did you witness when you were serving? 30. Tell us about your uniform and the weapon that you carried. 31. What was most exhilarating thing you did while in service? 32. Did you face any hand to hand combat? 33. What were your emotions like during service? 34. What did you do in your free time? 35. How did you communicate with your family? 36. Did you send letters? If so, how many?

__War’s End, Coming Home__: 37. What was happening when you came home? 38. What were your emotions like when you were leaving service? 39. Did you get a warm reaction when you got home? 40.What did your family do for you? 41. How did you readjust to civilian life? 42. Was it easy to find a job again? 43. Did you get recognized as being a hero? 44. Did you stay in touch with your friends that you made there?

__Reflections__: 45. How has the wartime experience affect your life? 46. Did you learn any lessons in War? 47. Please explain your medals and other items from your military experience. 48. Did you develop any skills you used later in life?


 * Ryan: We are interviewing Dale Zartman. He was born April 2, 1940. He served in the Cold War in the US Army as a military police officer. His highest rank was an SP4. This interview is taking place January 30, 2015 in Schaefferstown, Pennsylvania. I’m Ryan McAllister, **


 * Christian: And I’m Christian Spitler. **


 * Ryan: Dale is my great uncle and has no relation to Christian. My mother, Andrea McAllister, is also present in the room. The interview is being conducted for the Veterans History Project at the Library of Congress. **


 * Christian: Now Dale, we’re gonna ask you a few questions. Where did you grow up? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: I grew up in Kleinfeltersville, Pennsylvania. **


 * Ryan: What time period did you grow up in? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: That would have been in the 50s. **


 * Christian: Did you grow up wanting to be in the military? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uhh yes. As you're gonna find out, I went in the military right after I graduated from school. I enlisted before I graduated. **


 * Ryan: Were there any fear of the Soviets where you lived as you were growing up? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: When I grew up, that was the biggest thing. In that time was the Soviet Union. **


 * Christian: Did you have any siblings? If yes, were they in service? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: No, they were not in the service. I had none. **


 * Ryan: What did your parents do for work? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: My parents, my father worked in the chocolate factory, and my mother was a homemaker at home. **


 * Christian: What did you do before entering the service? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: I was in high school, and I did work at part time at Howard Johnson on the turnpike. **


 * Ryan: Where did you go to school? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: ELCO, it is now called, but it was Schaefferstown High School. **


 * Ryan: Did you get drafted or volunteer? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well I uh volunteered but you're right. They did have drafts at that time. And when you got drafted, you went to the military for two years and in the army, you went for three years if you volunteered. You went in the navy or the marines it was four years if you volunteered. **


 * Christian: What were your parent’s thoughts about you being in the military? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Haha. Well that there is a question. I don’t think any parents really cared. They care and worry about it when you go in the military. Because the military is designed for one thing. It’s to defend our country and that’s what it’s designed for. In peacetime, it’s fine, but it’s not fine in war time. **


 * Ryan: What was it like when you first got to where you were getting trained? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Pardon me? **


 * Ryan: What was it like when you first got to where you were getting trained? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Trained? **


 * Ryan: Trained. **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well, I went to uh Fort uh for my basic training, I really went to Fort Benning, Georgia. And then that was uh Infantry Division and then I went to Fort Gordon for my military police training. **


 * Christian: What was basic training like? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh basic training was what it’s like now. It was rough at times because you have people hollering at you. You have people screaming at you. And at that time, you didn’t really have many repercussions that you could come back at like today, I don’t believe that it’s quite as rough. And yet I am sure many times the military is still the same. So, basic training, it was a tedious training. It was something where you didn’t do what you wanna do, you done what they wanted to do. So they made you like a machine. They tell you to stand, you stand. They tell you to sit, you sit. And that’s about what the military’s like. **


 * Ryan: Was training physically demanding? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Yes, very demanding. They had uh their own skills that you had to do umm.., so many push-ups, so many pull-ups, uhh I don’t know exact numbers. And you had to run in so much time. You had different courses you had to do. And it was all timed. And what they did is they tried to get out of you as much as you could produce. So they tried to really pull the strings to where you almost crack. But, they didn’t want you to crack. They would stop at that point. **


 * Christian: What was your drill sar.. drill sergeant like? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: My drill sergeant was very strict. Umm.., he had to live the same life. You know you think as a drill sergeant, you think boy they got it made. But you know he had to get up early in the morning. He had to get up to get me to go. So the drill sergeant had to do almost the same as me except he didn’t have to do what he asked me to do. In other words, he tell you to run, he didn’t always have to run. He could stand and watch from a podium. Uhh.., but the drill sergeants are very strict and that’s what makes the military work. **


 * Ryan: What were the conditions like at you training base? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: They were good at that time, and they are today yet. Uhh.., you get three meals a day. You have a cot. Now you don’t have, you don’t have rooms like a hotel or anything. There is a big barracks and what I was, it was like 20 people slept in one barracks. Uh but you had cots, you had sheets, clean sheets, you’d change them once a week. Uh and you had to do all your uniforms, you know, all of it was strict. Uh putting things together. **


 * Christian: What did you eat during training? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: The meals were not bad. You learned to eat depend where you were and since I was down south, the food was more southern food. Since I was at Fort Benning and Fort Gord- uh down at Gordon, that’s all in Georgia. So that’s the southern part. And the heat was, it was hot down there. Uh the food was good though as far as you get three meals. You get breakfast. You got your lunch and you got your supper. **


 * Ryan: What was your schedule like during training? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: The schedule started at 6 o’clock in the morning. And we usually finished up about 8-9 o’clock in the evening. Now that didn’t continue straight through; what happened was like at 6 o’clock, you’d have breakfast till 7 o’clock and then maybe you had half an hour to get ready to go out in the field to do classroom work. And then 11- I think it was 11 or 11:30 then we’d stop and we’d get ready for lunch. Then you’d have an hour, hour and a half for lunch and uh the reason you had an hour and a half is because some people had to pull KP and some didn’t. So the ones that didn’t pull KP that time then you’d go eat then you’d get a half an hour extra time off see. But, when it’s your turn to pull KP, you didn’t get no time off because you were busy doing the kitchen and taking care of feeding the troops. **


 * Christian: Did you make friends quickly? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Yes, and at that time, I guess we can go into this, I hope I don’t overstep it. But, at that time we had problems of uh racial problems. Um.., and me being from the north, I didn’t understand at all. Because where I live, and still live, uh the racial problem was no big issue to me. And I couldn’t understand why they would do that. The black people would step to the side, get off the sidewalks when you walked. And even in the military at that time it was uh when I went to training, we stopped at a diner and it was uh for bathroom relief. I went in in the inside of the diner and the black young men that were with me had to go in the back of the diner at that time. So I was in the period when things were changing. And they were a little I shouldn’t say hard and yet they were hard because sometimes uh blacks were discriminated on. And they truly were. And they were doing the same work I was doing they were doing everything the same. But one good thing about it, I had a black sergeant. And it didn’t affect me but it did affect a lot of your southern white boys. I call them boys, we were men but you say boys anyway. But down south you don’t say boys, because that’s discriminating. So, I went through the time period of that too. So, that was in the 50s and that was happening here at home this more than we like. I mean a lot of things happened in the 50s. **


 * Ryan: Now did you have any African-American friends? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Oh yeah I did because I was from the north. See like I said, they didn’t really bother me. I thought they were like anyone else. **


 * Ryan: And did you get like discriminated almost at your training and at the base for doing for having those friends or..? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: You know that didn’t happen. That was what the funny part was. Even the southern white people were trying, I think, to do this. And then they see the young guys like me from the north and it you know like we treat a black the same as a white almost. As long as you did your job. That was the biggest thing. Do your job. **


 * Ryan: How soon did you split off into your MOS’s? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh well, you went through basic training and in basic training that you had to the enlisted men and volunteers. Volunteers were RA, that was their M... their social sec.. I mean their number, their military number. And for the drafts, they were US. That meants they only stayed served two years. So they were all together and some of the US went over to military police training. So I had eight weeks of basic training and then I went into Fort Gordon, Georgia for military police training. **


 * Christian: Could you tell us a little bit about your military police training. **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh.., Military police training was my first real training as far as going into being a police officer, which I wanted to be a police officer because my dreams were to become a state policeman when I get out of the military. And so the military police is what I wanted, and I got it because I volunteered so I could choose at that time of the MOS you wanted to be in. And that’s why I volunteered for three years. So I could get into military police training and that would give me some police experience. So the training itself was similar to police work; traffic control, uh investigations, uh we did the same as a normal police officer would train. That’s what they did in the military police, traffic control and so forth. **


 * Ryan: Um was there anything else that happened in you specialized training? Like did you work with firearms of any kind or..? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well, when we were in training yes. We learned to fire at that time the mili...uh the army had the M1 rifle. And that was the rifle that all infantry soldiers carried. And so did the MP’s at that time if they went to war. We woulda had uh that rifle. We also had carbine at that time which was a lighter rifle. And then we also carried the 45 pistol caliber pistol. That’s what we carried when we were on duty. **


 * Christian: Was it tough being away from your family? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well I was a young boy as you would say I guess. Because I graduated from school when I went to the military. And then I went right to the military so I wasn’t had no responsibility, no families that I had responsibility to. And so it was like when you graduated, you’re young and you're ready to go. So it was a little easier on me than it would have been married people. A lot of the married people that were there, you could tell they were married and they had children because they got homesick very fast. Where I had no bod… no responsibility really you know young and when you get out of school you’re ready you’re ready to go. **


 * Ryan: When were you first deployed? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: I was deployed uh when I graduated in ‘58 like I said we went to the military and uh from there I went right to Fort Benning, Georgia. I went into here at Lebanon to where the recruiter was and that’s how I got going to New Cumberland and off I went. **


 * Ryan: Where were you first deployed overseas? Where and when were you first deployed overseas? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Overseas, I went in uh right from graduating from the military police. That would have been in uh 59 uhh would have been close to 59. It would have been somewhere in the middle of 59 because I graduated in 58 and 59 I would have graduated from Fort Gordon, Georgia. And I went to New Jersey for that and from there we flew, I flew over. No I take it back, I flew home. I went over on a boat, a big boat. So I went there on a boat from Jersey in 59. **


 * Christian: What was it like when you were first deployed? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Now going over there see, being a little farm boy, going over there was something new you know it was like wow. So I when I went into uh we stopped at uh Britain and we had a little bit there. And it was all new to me, even Germany. When I got to Germany it was like I look around and wow you know it’s it it's kind of scary really because if you’ve never been there, and I’ve never been out of Schaefferstown hahaha. As a young ma… boy, I’ve never really been out of any place so I was kind of a backward you know and going to Germany was different. Now the only nice thing about Germany it’s almost like Pennsylvania. It really is, the weather’s the same, we get the winter weather, we get the summer weather. And uh so Germany was uh it was a real nice place. **


 * Ryan: What were the conditions like there? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh there, we had nice barracks, they were German barracks. Actually, they were from the military German where I stayed was where the German Army was. And we stayed in Giessen, Germany. And uh we had a barracks there that the army had. And there I had a room with only two guys in it, it was like living at home. So there were two guys, there were uh rooms for four and they were regular yet beds and you could get. I had a radio, I had uh it was like a regular home here. **


 * Christian: How was the journey there? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: How was the what? **


 * Christian: How was the journey there? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Oh the journey on the boat was kind of uh I had to go by some of the old the old soldiers that were over there. They use to say to me you don’t wanna get sick. You can get seasick on these ships. I mean there’s no room. When you sleep in them things, they are bad. Uh but he always said you go outside everyday get fresh air. And he said never look out at the ocean, you’re gonna get sick. And I can remember the one time for breakfast, I was sitting there eating breakfast and I did a no-no. I put my coffee on the table, and I took it off the tray and put it on the table and the next thing, it goes flying haha. So when you're on a ship, you wanna keep your coffee on the tray and hold one hand with the tray haha. So that’s why I never wanted to be in the navy; because they put up with that. I didn’t have to put up with that when I got to Germany. **


 * Ryan: What did you witness when you were serving? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well, I witnessed a lot of uh I did a lot of traffic accident investigations so I had a lot of accidents. I had two fatalities while I was in Germany. The one was a soldier burnt in a jeep, completely. I never did see him. Uh and the other fatality was a girl and it was a civilian. So we had civilians over there and what they were is when I say civilians, it was military that brought their wives and their children over there. Now they had a development over there like we have developments here, but it was a military development. And as the part of the military police at that time is, we controlled all US citizens; all of them that include our civilians. So when I went to an accident, the only reason I would go is because there was a military involved or there is civilians involved. And that meant civilian cars because a lot of the military had civilian cars for their families. And where in Giessen, Germany we had two big developments that were for the military’s families. So that would have been the military’s wives and their children. They had a school there just for the military children. And we had military police that would be on the school guard. I didn’t do that. But he’d go out and direct traffic and make sure all the crossings for the children. And they actually bussed them in like they do here. Uh we had movies over there well like they have here. We had stores like we have here and that was run by the military. But they were civilians. **


 * Christian: Could you tell us about your uniform and the weapon that you carried? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh… The uniform, there again, see the way I went through some times when we changed. The army was in brown and they used to have like they called an Eisenhower jacket. It was an army brown. And I went in, they had the brown but they also had a green, the new green. And the new blue uniform that they’re wearing today. So I went in when that change was made. Uhh… most of my uh duty was done in the, the green uniform and summertime was a khaki uniform. Uh… we wore an armband around our arm for military police. Uhh… that we only wore when we worked. That’s the only time we wore it. And now on our collars we wore two pins. One was US and the other was cross pistols, Cross pistols or the military police. That’s their insignia. Uhh.. so we had the khakis and we wore boots with them. And, believe it or not, we went to the kitchen and we got number ten cans. And we, uhh, would cut them in half and we would tape them with, uhh…, not duct tape but uhh… Masking tape! And we would put them in our pants here so it would keep a shape, and would look good. Cause we, then we’d have a little elastic and we put under here, our boots. But then they just wouldn’t flap, they would make a shape. So that was one thing we did to make it look better. Uhh… military police we like to look good. We like to uhh…, because it’s impressive, it’s impressive to people, it’s impressive, even to the German people it was in impressive. And we wore white hats for military police. Umm… We carried Saint Brown and now we had, uh, leather but we bought patent leather which keeps a shine and that would look good. And we wore a little white rope around there and it hooked onto our pistol which was a .45 caliber. Now we never carried a round in the chamber. Uhh… They would, They wouldn’t do that now in war time. But we were in the Cold War time. So we were told we could carry rounds in our magazine, but in a .45 automatic all we did was push it in. We never loaded one. So if we needed to fire one we would’ve had to have to, to ram the thing back before we could use it. And uhh… the thought was, we don’t want too many accidents, at that time, but that’s how we did it. **


 * Ryan: What was the most exhilarating thing you did while in service? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well I guess it would’ve had to been, the most exhilarating thing would have been, I believe, it would be the two fatality accidents I had. Uhh… I don’t think I’ll ever forget it. But there was nothing I could do about it. I mean the soldier was in the jeep and I couldn’t get him out. I couldn’t do nothing. It was in full engulfed of flames and all I could do was stand there and watch it. And believe it or not the jeep did not explode. I could not believe it but it didn’t. And the girl, she was, uhh… oh I’m not sure of her age anymore. She was a young girl though that died in an accident. And that was because a German, and not to blame the Germans uhh.. accidents are accidents, but they ran through. They didn’t like stop signs. Hahaha.... I guess nobody does, but uh they ran through a stop sign and the girl was sitting in the passenger’s side. So those had to be two of the things I think the most, that I experienced. **


 * Ryan: Now when you say that you investigated what kind of, like, investigation stuff did you do? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Ok. Well I investigated traffic accidents right like they do here in the states. They go out there and they investigate when you get a call. Uhh.. Military police, we had a desk. Cause when calls came in the desk, right like they do now in police work. And uhh… then we’d get a call. We had an interpreter at the desk cause most of the calls were Germans. That called in and if you didn’t understand English then you were in trouble. And if you didn’t understand German you were in trouble. Cause some of them didn’t understand it. And on our form or our accident investigation form, we had English and we also had German. It was spelled out. So a lot of the times, when we, we worked very close to the German Police cause most times they were there. There wasn’t always two Americans that had accidents, it was a German and American. So then most of the time we had to work with the German police. So a lot of times you would try to speak to the German Police and you couldn’t. What you do is you used the form for the things you need. But you did learn a lot of the language. Now, Pennsylvania-Dutch, which I do not speak, would have helped me, and it did help understand a lot of the German police when they talked. But the part part is I couldn’t speak it. If I would’ve been able to speak it, they would’ve said we had the lower German dialect. Pennsylvania-Dutch is a lower. It’s not a higher. Cause in Germany they have the higher speaking. And there’s German people over there that don’t understand the German people because they go to a real high. And it’s kind of funny the way that works, but it is. There’s different German dialects. **


 * Christian: Did you face any hand to hand combat? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: No, the only hand-to-hand combat I woulda had is, was really in basic training when you did it with instructors. Uh, as far as did I have problems with people when I uh… talked to them. Yes, I enjoyed talking to people. So a lot of the people I never really had problems with cause we did other kind of work. We’d have to go into the bars and if there was a fight in there we would have to go in there and break it up. And a lot of times, there again, there were German people in there. Yeah, most of the times, the German police were right there with you. But we had to do that. We also, I guess I can go into this, I was on the Vice squad. We were not, and that was unusual because I was an unmarried person. And uh, I didn’t get married while I was in the military either. So, but the guy left and happened, some reason they put me on there, and what we did is go out with the German Police. And we went over with the German Police, over there prostitution was legal. So, what they did is they carried cards. And the only reason I went along because a lot of our military personnel married German girls. Well, when they got married they became a U.S. citizen. The German police did not really have control over it at that time. It may have changed now. But at that time, the military controlled military and if they were married to a military personnel, they became a U.S. citizen. So we controlled it. So, if we found any girls out there that were... not supposed to be in the bars and they were there, I had to handle that. And we had a long list of all the girls and married girls, that’s what they were, of what they were doing. And the military had to control this. So I mean, that’s why I went along now. That was another job I done. And uh… so we did, we did all kinds, the military police did the same kind of work that a police officer around here does today. They really did, and they had the authority to do it at that time. Now things might have changed by now, because over time things do change. Just like when you’re in war, military has full authority. Now we didn’t have full authority because we were not at war time. **


 * Ryan: What were your emotions like during service? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh… Sometimes they were high. It all depends what job I had to do. Uhh… You went out to accidents. You seen people hurt. Uh… you feel sorry for them, you still do today when I worked. Uh.. but you had to do what you had to do with it. And uh… a lot of those things were, uh, emotional. Would a, sometimes you’d get sad over it, but you had to get over it. Uh… We went to a lot of disputes as far as man and wives. We had to break them up. Uh… Those were the hardest ones and they’re the hardest ones today in any police work. That’s the hardest job there is, when you have spouse having fights. It’s very hard, cause you never know what they’re gonna do. And if you’re by yourself, it’s a challenge and a lot of our work, we did by ourselves. I did anyway with the… because I was in, in the accident investigation. So they usually put me by myself to investigate accidents. **


 * Christian Spitler: What did you do in your free time? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: My free time? Well, I guess I can tell you, we had a good cold beer a lot of the times. Uh… German beer is very good and uh… we played softball like they do here. We had a softball team. We had challenges of playing different military places. They had basketball, We had movies, and uh… they had the PXO. We did almost almost what you do here at home. **


 * Ryan: How did you communicate with your family? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh… The only communication we could do with our family was writing letters. It’s not like today. We didn’t have cell phones. Uh… We couldn’t call, we didn’t have the Internet, so we couldn’t do that. Uhh.. Letters were the only way we communicated back and forth. I.. I’d say I tried to write my parents once a week. Uh… There again, if you were a married person or if you had your wife at home, these guys would write every day. Believe it or not, some, I knew some guys that wrote every day, EVERYDAY. I don’t know what they have to say, but they would write everyday. **


 * Christian Spitler: What was happening when you came home? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh, when I came home, we were still with problem of black and whites. That was the biggest thing here even when I came home. Uh, I don’t think it was bad, eh… Well I shouldn’t say that, it still, it was a big problem. But in the military in Germany, where I was, we didn’t have that problem. Like we have here, of course they didn’t, the Germans didn’t have that problem with different nationalities, except through the Americans, and they didn’t really think that much as far as the biggest problems. So when I get home, it was… employment wasn’t as bad of course I went on unemployment for a while, but it didn’t last long. I was on vacation for a little bit, but then it was back to work. **


 * Ryan: Did you get a warm reaction when you got home? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: No. Nobody really cared as much as when you came home or not. And of course, I was in the Cold War so it was no big deal. You know, it’s a thing that I served in the military. I came home and I went to Fort Sill, Oklahoma. And then when I got out from there, it was just like getting out of a job cause I was not in war. **


 * Christian: How did you readjust to civilian life? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well I think I did it real quick because when I got home, then I, uh, my next step was to take my next challenge. And that was to try to get into the Pennsylvania State Police, in which I did. But I was first worked at a cabin shop down in country craft there in Newmanstown. But from there when I got the call to go to the state police, that’s where I went. **


 * Ryan: Did you get recognized as being almost a hero for your service? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: No. no that time military, because they had all volunteers. Now it’s different. They we had to drafts and volunteers, but no. It was almost like a job. **


 * Christian: Did you stay in touch with your friends that you made there? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: You know what? I’d have to say no I didn’t and I made a lot of friends. But sometimes I, I wished I would’ve and I didn’t. Cause I don’t even know how to get ahold of them. They wouldn’t have no idea. It was kind of a thing that when you left there, you were leaving. That’s it. **


 * Ryan: How has the wartime experience affected your life? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well, since there was no war, it really didn’t affect my life too much. The only thing we had when I was, I used to patrol along the autobahn which was like a turnpike. Uh, we had the Soviet Unions, they would challenge, they’d come over and I think it was just to tease you a little bit. And uh, we had to report that and keep track of them. Uh, that was the only time that I even had contact with Soviet people was it when they were in a car. So it didn’t really affect me too much. **


 * Christian: Did you learn any lessons during your service? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Oh yeah. A lot of educational things, uh, one thing that I was glad for was that I graduated from high school believe it or not and at that time, you needed a high school education. There’s no doubt about that. College was a big thing if you need it and it depend on where you wanted to go. And as a police officer, even college today, you need it. And also, I mean, but you could always get it as you were going, while you’re in the military, you have the opportunity to get more schooling. That you can do. I was sent over to Garmisch, Germany for accident investigation. It was one of the finest schools the army was offering at that time and that was eight weeks. And that was a good school, a very good school. Taught me a lot which I carried on through my career as a state trooper. **


 * Ryan: Can you explain any medals or any other items you got during your experience? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Uh, I didn’t get a lot of medals. The medals I got was Sharpshooter for .45 and I had Marksmen with the M1 rifle, and then I got a driving medal, and, of course accident investigation, they gave me a little pin for graduating there. Uh, but I didn’t get a lot of medals because I didn’t go into war, when you go into war, there, a lot of medals are given because of your unit and so forth. But I didn’t have that experience. I did have a good experience of meeting Elvis Presley. See that there Bad Nauheim was in the armored division and he happened to be there when I was there and I was in Giessen, Germany and one of our other stations at Bad Nauheim. The 709th Military Police Battalion is a battalion. So that means that it had four stations. It was headquartered at Frankfurt, Germany and uh, Elvis went to Bad Nauheim. And, uh, I used to stop in there and I always said to them, “I wanna see Elvis.” I said I seen his dad because he comes to our PX. I even talked to him. He was a character. And, uh, he’d buy records just to put the sales up, so I understood how to do this with recording. And the one MP over there he said, “I’ll take you to the barracks, that’s where he’s at. He’s over there in the armored division.” That’s where they lived and their station was along the Autobahn though. It was near the Autobahn. So I did see him, I never talked to him though, as far as, because you didn’t bother people, even though they were stars and that. You didn’t sit and bother with them. Everybody said, well you shoulda got a teddy-bear or something. I shoulda got his autograph, you know, it would’ve been nice now. So, but I had that experience anyway. **


 * Christian: Did you develop any skills you used later in life? **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Well, yes. All my police training that I got in the military I took with me. From the Pennsylvania State Police and I got it more, but all them skills were with me. Accident investigation, all them skills actually I got in the military so the military gave me plus they got me through the State Police Academy. That was one of the most vigorous training there is. It was worse than the military. So it gave me a lot of know how and what to do cause the military taught me that. Course I like military-type life, I really did, so it didn’t bother me. **


 * Ryan: Well, we want to thank you for your service and we want to thank you for doing this project. **


 * Sgt. Zartman: Thank you. It was a pleasure being here and talking to yous. **

** __Veterans narrative__ ** ** By: Ryan McAllister & Christian Spitler **


 * Mr. Dale Zartman served in the United States Army as a Military Police officer during the Cold War. He grew up in Kleinfeltersville, Pennsylvania during the 1950s and attended school at Schaefferstown High School. He had no siblings and his parents worked at a chocolate factory and at home. He went directly from high school into the military. He volunteered to be in the military and began his training at Fort Benning, Georgia. **
 * He went there for his infantry division and then went to Fort Gordon, Georgia for his Military Police training. “Well, I went to uh Fort uh for my basic training, I really went to Fort Benning, Georgia. And then that was uh Infantry Division and then I went to Fort Gordon for my military police training.” During training, he was made like a machine and was told what to do and when to do it. His training was also very physically demanding as the sergeants pushed him and his comrades to the point of almost cracking with daily push-up, pull-up, and running drills. He had a black drill sergeant who was very strict, and he slept on a cot in a big barracks with about 20 other men. He ate a good three meals a day which mainly consisted of southern cuisine. “You learned to eat depend where you were and since I was down south, the food was more southern food. Since I was at Fort Benning and Fort Gord- uh down at Gordon, that’s all in Georgia. So that’s the southern part.” His day began at 6 o’clock in the morning and ended between 8-9 o’clock in the evening. There were also racial issues during his time and because he was down south. A lot of the people he was around were affected especially since his sergeant was black. However, he wasn’t affected at all and in fact, he also had some African American friends and wasn’t discriminated against for having these friends of a different race. “Oh yeah I did because I was from the north. See like I said, they didn’t really bother me. I thought they were like anyone else.” After eight weeks of basic training, he went to Fort Gordon, Georgia for his military police training. Mr. Zartman had wanted to be a police officer since his childhood. That is why he volunteered to be in the military because if he volunteered, you he to pick his MOS. He was trained in what a normal police officer would be trained in; traffic control, investigations, etc. He learned to fire the M1 rifle and carried around a 45 pistol caliber pistol while on duty. During training, home was the last thing on his mind, however. For some of the soldiers, the experience away from home was almost unbearable. “As a young ma… boy, I’ve never really been out of any place so I was kind of a backward you know and going to Germany was different. Now the only nice thing about Germany it’s almost like Pennsylvania. It really is, the weather’s the same, we get the winter weather, we get the summer weather. And uh so Germany was uh it was a real nice place.” **
 * He and the rest of the US military had nice barracks in Germany. His room consisted of himself and two other men sleeping on regular beds and having many comforts of home including a radio. His journey on the boat however, wasn’t a comfort as he was in a boat with no room and no fresh air. While in Germany, he witnessed many things including two fatalities, a German soldier and a little girl, in car accidents that he had to investigate. “The one was a soldier burnt in a jeep, completely. I never did see him. Uh and the other fatality was a girl and it was a civilian. So we had civilians over there and what they were is when I say civilians, it was military that brought their wives and their children over there.” He also helped in developments that were built for the American soldiers’ families in Germany. Some of his fellow policemen even helped to direct traffic at the school crossings for the children. **
 * Sergeant Zartman and a few other policemen in his battalion were part of something called the Vice Squad. As a member of the Vice squad, he would scour around the bars and stop any prostitution that went on with a US citizen. This happened because many of the military policemen married German girls, and once they were married to a US citizen they became one too. “Well, when they got married they became a U.S. citizen.” It was unusual for Sergeant Zartman to be part of the Vice squad because normally, only married people were a part of that squad. “I was on the Vice squad. We were not, and that was unusual because I was an unmarried person.” This task was just added on to the list that he had to as a military policeman. **
 * As Sergeant Zartman would sit in his office, he was always ready and prepared for a call he may receive. He was normally called to investigate accidents, which he usually did by himself. This was not unusual, as most investigations for the military police were carried out by a single person. Often while investigating he had to deal with the German police, because it was rare that a car crash included only Americans and not a mix of both Americans and Germans. Because of this, there was the trouble of communicating with the German Police. Sergeant Zartman wished he knew Pennsylvania-Dutch which would’ve helped him understand some of the German language. To get past this language barrier, there were these forms that had English and German on them which would help you find out the things you needed to know. **
 * In his free-time, Sergeant Zartman had a few choices of what he could occupy himself with. One thing he thoroughly enjoyed was having a good, cold beer. “we had a good cold beer a lot of the times. Uh… German beer is very good.” In Germany, their beers are top quality and Zartman thought so too. He also got to play softball on occasion with his military police battalion. They actually had their own team and would play for fun just like they would in America. They travelled to different military places to take part in playing softball. At one of these other military bases, Zartman saw something that would forever stick with him. It was at Bad Nauheim that he saw Elvis Presley. Sergeant Zartman had told somebody, “I wanna go see Elvis,” and he did. Sergeant Zartman never got to talk with him or even got his autograph which he regrets. He did get to talk with Elvis’s dad though, which was a delight for him. **
 * After years of service in Germany, Zartman was ready to go home. It was a little bittersweet for him. He was going to leave behind friends he made there, but he was also now going to start a new chapter in his life. When he got home, he took a short vacation as he called it and then went after his next goal of becoming a state police officer. He achieved this with the help of his past experience as a military police officer in Germany. “Taught me a lot which I carried on through my career as a state trooper.” Sergeant Dale Zartman served his country even after his service as a military police officer ended by becoming a state police officer. **