Announcing TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY: A COLD WAR MEMOIR Now on Wattpad

I have been very pleased with my experiment of writing chapters of my dystopian thriller THE MOTHER SIEGE on the free site Wattpad. This experience has encouraged me to simultaneously try the experiment for a nonfiction telling of the historical past — TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY: A COLD WAR MEMOIR.

I have all the original documents from when my husband Mitch and I were stationed with the U.S. Army in Munich, Germany, from September 1970 to May 1972. In the future I will be sharing some of these documents on my author website at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

And while many of the true tales I will be telling in my Cold War memoir are humorous, underlying everything is the very real concern that, without American troops stationed in Germany, the Soviets could have marched over the border between East and West Germany to expand their sphere of Communism.

Click here to read the beginning of TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY.

P.S. Thanks to Yael K. Miller for creating the terrific cover for TALES OF AN AMERICAN OCCUPYING GERMANY.

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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the 2008 Amazon Breakthrough Novel Award semifinalist MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Navy thriller LT. COMMANDER MOLLIE SANDERS. Phyllis is the co-founder of the marketing consulting company Miller Mosaic LLC, which works with clients to attract more business. Read her book-related posts at www.PhyllisZimblerMiller.com

My Russian Spy Recruitment Story

The July 5th Wall Street Journal carried a story by Sean Gardiner titled “A Cold-War Spy Story.” In the story, Gardiner features Paul Browne, now deputy New York City police commissioner.

Gardiner describes Paul Browne’s “firsthand experience being recruited by a Russian agent – a Soviet spy betting a relationship with a small-town newspaper reporter would one day bear fruit.”

This recruitment attempt began in 1973 -- two years after the recruitment attempt of my husband and myself in an inexpensive eatery in Copenhagen in September 1971.

At that time my husband Mitch and I had been stationed since September 1970 in Munich, where Mitch was a U.S. Army intelligence officer at the 18th Military Battalion. I had spent the time fighting the U.S. Civil Service and finally had a GS rating and a security clearance.

Upon our return from Copenhagen I would start working as a GS-3 at the 66th Military Intelligence Group. And I had already signed documents telling me what to expect from a Soviet recruitment pickup effort.

Now picture Copenhagen in September 1971:

All the tourists have gone home. Mitch has a very short haircut (in 1971 a dead giveaway that he is military) and we’re sitting in an inexpensive eatery listed in Frommer’s “Europe on $5 and $10 a Day.”

The middle-aged man sitting next to us says, “These Danes are so frivolous. I’ve just been to Russia and they’re much more serious there.”

My husband and I touch knees under the table. This is a classic recruitment pickup line – extolling the virtues of the Russians.

But this classic line so shakes us that we immediately get up from our table and run – yes run – all the way to Tivoli Gardens and halfway through before we stop running.

Then we look at each other. Incredible! Just as we had been warned.

And, yes, one day when I came to work at the 66th, my GS-12 boss was very agitated. A U.S. soldier stationed on the border with East Germany had “gone over to the other side.” My boss surmised that the Russians had gotten the lonely solder in a compromising position.

That was the Cold War 40 years ago. We were taught to be vigilant against Soviet agents. And we even laughed at the Russian spy standing outside in the cold as we arrived to attend the post commander’s New Year’s Day reception at the officers’ club.

Now it’s 2010 – and there are Russian sleeper agents arrested in the U.S. The past has come forward 40 years.
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Phyllis Zimbler Miller is the author of the novel MRS. LIEUTENANT and the co-author of the Jewish holiday book SEASONS FOR CELEBRATION. Her newest military-related project is supporting the upcoming PTSD Walk Across America.Phyllis' social media marketing company Miller Mosaic Power Marketing combines traditional marketing principles and Internet marketing strategies to put power in your hands. Read her social media marketing blog.

To Stay or Not to Stay in Iraq: That is the Question

I’ve just finished reading The Wall Street Journal’s April 9^th article by Yochi J. Dreazen about General David Petraeus’s Iraq report to two Senate panels.

As I’m not writing a political bog, I’m not going to give my opinion on what Petraeus said. And even if this were a political blog, I believe it’s ludicrous for people in the United States to make pronouncements about an extremely volatile situation halfway around the globe. That’s what the concept of “boots on the ground” is about – you have to be there to have even the remotest chance of knowing what’s really going on.

What I want to say concerns Dreazen’s following comment about the testimony of U.S. Ambassador Ryan Crocker: “Mr. Crocker tried to reassure lawmakers that an emerging agreement between Iraq and the U.S. won’t establish permanent U.S. bases inside Iraq or require future presidents to maintain large numbers of troops there.”

The other day I was surprised to learn that a close friend had no idea that the U.S. still has troops (and their families) in Germany as an aftermath of World War II. So when I read the above statement I tried to visualize permanent bases inside Iraq the way the U.S. has permanent bases (kasernes in German) in Germany.

From September of 1970 until May of 1972, I lived in Munich, Germany, with my army officer husband in military housing connected with McGraw Kaserne. Recently I’ve been reviewing the letters I wrote home (I’m working on the sequel to my forthcoming novel MRS. LIEUTENANT).

Many of the problems I experienced living in Germany then are probably not problems today thanks to the internet, cell phones, etc. Yet for all the annoying problems of living in a foreign country, we Americans were never threatened with the possibility of West Germans lobbing missiles into our housing areas or shooting us as we shopped in downtown Munich.

I can’t imagine a future in which U.S. military families could live safely in a housing area connected with a military base in Iraq. Thus I assume Iraq would always be an “unaccompanied tour” requiring family separations.

I do understand why the U.S. established bases in West Germany after the war. I personally lived through the Cold War threat in Europe, when U.S. policy makers truly believed that, without the presence of U.S. troops in West Germany, the Soviets would roll their tanks from East Germany into West Germany, and then from there who knew?

The question of remaining in Iraq indefinitely is a different question, and one about which I certainly can’t opine. I also can’t imagine what would have happened if U.S troops had stayed in Vietnam indefinitely. Would the fall of Saigon and its terrible aftermath for the South Vietnamese who were our friends never have happened? Or would this horrific scenario only have been postponed for a few more years?

Unfortunately, history doesn’t offer a crystal ball for what would happen in future different scenarios. That knowledge is only possible in alternate science fiction stories. And, for better or worse, we’re living in the real world.