"Peacetime"/Cold War, fall of 1980, many NATO members converged upon West Germany in a colossal exercise to emulate running to the aid of Western Europe when/if the "monolithic communist horde" flooded across the border. The exercise was called "REFORGER," an acronym for Return of Forces to Germany.
I ended up in the northern part of Germany, where the Brits were stationed. We few into Belgium, were treated very, very well for the couple hours we were there before bussing to a remote, rural site in the middle of the night to offload into abandoned SS R&R barracks for the duration of the "visit." When we pulled up, there were barricades holding back a mob of what appeared to be angry women and children.
I'd been warned by a former girlfriend's mother, who was born and raised in Germany, to not get stationed there, because Germans hated Americans. As I shuffled off the bus to face the angry, screaming protesters, it dawned on me they were all smiling and waving. No placards, no pickets - they were reaching to touch us and acting like we were heroes come to save them.
For the next month, everywhere I went, dirty, stinky, muddy, wearing fatigues and steel pot and toting an M203 into whatever gasthaus was near when I was hungry, I was treated exceptionally well. If there were a WWII Vet in the place, I couldn't buy my lunch - he or they would buy it for me and gab in German while I ate.
I honestly get choked up telling or writing this. It was overwhelming for a 19 year-old kid - a "privileged American" - to be treated so well when I was part of a huge imposition upon their daily lives, their roads and streets and accommodations.
I know a young American woman who travels for a living. It has amazed me how well she is treated elsewhere. In Vietnam, especially, which was particularly touching. She's been to most of the worst places for an American to have ended up in during the Cold War and has been treated very well.
A dear friend who passed just a bit over a year ago, a Vietnam Vet, who spent the last thirty years of his life traveling the globe as well - most of the same places she went - and he was treated very well too. His travels started when he decided to go back to Vietnam and was treated like an old friend, like family.
There are some places - there are some people - who appreciate things. They just don't seem to make the news.
