I know it’s over 61 years since World War II ended, but one still must exercize a certain degree of sensitivity to the fact that we are an American Army still inhabiting German soil. We occupy large parts of this country, even though we are no longer an Army of Occupation. Just between here and nearby Heidelburg are dozens of Army and Air Force Bases, Caserns, Barracks, Clinics, Depots, Commands and Headquarters, a pattern repeated all over Germany. Many German citizens work on U.S. installations in a myriad of capacities from the highly technical to the menial. Almost everyone of them speaks English very well. That includes the dozens of German locals who man the security fence that the hospital erected several months back, in more than token recognition of the worldwide span of the anti-terror struggle. In order to enter the hospital grounds proper I must present my military I.D. card to one of these uniformed German guards, who sit in little guard houses or patrol the perimeter around the clock. If I say, “Good morning,” they answer “Have a nice day!” If I say “Guten Morgen,” they still say “Have a nice day!” Practicing the sensitivity I referred to earlier, I refrain from remarking on the historical turnabout here — where the local police power exists to prevent me from entering, rather than leaving, a barb-wire enclosed facility holding hundreds of American soldiers. Thank heaven none of them is named Schultz, because all I can think of is reruns of Hogans Heroes and reading Stalag 15 in high school. If you’re thinking, who’d attack a hospital full of soldiers wounded in Iraq, you’d be thinking in pre-9/11 terms, and abiding by now possibly out-of-date Geneva conventions regarding the treatment of soldiers who, by their disabilities, are hors-de-combat. No, in fact this place is a delectable target, if only for the headlines such an attack would earn, so I only hope the lightly armed, slightly superannuated German guards are up to the task of fending off any would-be terrorists. If Charles Martel had not defeated the Muslim advance into Western Europe at Tours in 732, and had Venice, Spain and the Pope’s forces not defeated the Ottoman advance into Eastern Europe at Lepanto in 1571, we’d all likely be speaking some variant of Arabic today. From where I sit, the job of keeping Europe out of the grip of the new jihadists now seems to rest in the hands of about forty-five middle-aged German men wearing sidearms and speaking impeccible English. Gotta go.