My last blog was about General Colin Powell and the number of similar experiences we had (I forgot to mention that we both had our retirement parades at the Fort Myer Parade Field).  I mentioned that we both lived in senior government housing in Bad Vilbel, Germany (near Frankfurt).  Well, before General Powell arrived, we had to put one of the general officer quarters under a microscope.

There were four or five units designated as general officer quarters.  It housed the V Corps generals and generals from other units in our area.  We had one general and his wife and child move in, and immediately move back out.  They said there was something strange and unhealthy about the house.  It was “contaminated.”

The wife explained that both she and her child had been sick since they moved in.  Some of the wives from her husband’s command had brought some flowers by and as soon as they left, the flowers started dying.  There was more.  She saw a fly come in an open window,  fly around and then, drop dead.  A very large painting that was to be placed in the living room had been damaged in the shipment and needed to be touched up.  A German artist came out to the house to work on it.  But, he got sick and could not complete the work.

Not only did they move out, but they no longer wanted any of their furniture, because they now believed that it too was contaminated.  I was now monitoring the situation, because I was seeing down the road a pretty big claim against Uncle Sam.  I wasn’t disappointed.  We sent out our resident specialists to test the air, drapes and rugs.  We found nothing.  I suggested getting an exorcist.  No one saw the humor.

It was decided between the V Corps leadership and the general that V Corps would hire the best company in Germany at investigating contaminations.  It cost quite a bit, but it would be worth it to put this mess  behind us.  The German company came in and took scrapings from the fabrics, paint chips and gathered up the dust balls.  They had contraptions for capturing the air in every room.  They went at it with German efficiency and attention to detail.  No turn was left unstoned.

As we expected, nothing was found.  But, it is hard to prove a negative and the general’s wife came back and said that no one had checked the crawl space under the house.  We checked it and found nothing.  We were at loggerheads.

One of my dearest friends in the Army is Ron Holdaway.  When I was assigned to Vietnam as the Deputy Staff Judge Advocate (SJA) for the 1st Air Cavalry Division, Ron was my boss.  And as it turned out, now that I was the V Corps SJA, Brigadier General Ron Holdaway was the Judge Advocate for US Army Europe and again, my boss.  He called me about the “contaminated” house.  It was getting some attention through the “old boy net” in Heidelberg.  I briefed him on what we had found so far.  Finally, Ron said, “Jack, we are dealing here with a general officer.”  I paused. Then, I said, “Sir, Major General Curry (our Deputy CG) told me yesterday that he would be delighted if someone could find that the house was contaminated.  Then, we could level it and move on.  But, since we have done all the superb testing and found nothing, what are we supposed to do?”  I think Ron understood our dilemma. 

About six months later, our general was promoted to his second star and reassigned out of the Frankfurt area.  We assigned another general to the “contaminated” house and guess what?  No dead flies, no problem.  We were not surprised.

Our newly promoted two-star general was reassigned to Heidelberg and assigned to quarters right behind General Holdaway.  The family didn’t last a month.  It turned out that Bad Vilbel wasn’t the only place with contaminated general office housing.  The general took his family to the Black Forest and commuted from there.  The next time I had the flimsiest excuse to call Ron Holdaway, I was all over it.  He said, “Jack, I know why you are calling.”  I said, “Sir, we are dealing here with a two-star general.”