Chapter 3

The Army

    I never really thought seriously about going into the service and what little I did think of it, I had thought first of the Navy. My dad, Bob,  had been in the Navy and he told wonderful stories of his enlistment and service. So how did I end up enlisting in the Army? The Army had had absolutely no attraction for me whatsoever, yet one day there I was enlisted in the Army. The recruiter and I decided that I would fit very well into military intelligence. I was told that I would be investigating military security matters. (theft, spying, espionage  Yeah  RIGHT!)  I might be wearing the uniform of a private one day and the uniform of a lieutenant the next. To get this kind of job I would have to enlist for 4 years. Well, he was halfway right, I did start out wearing the uniform of a private. (never did seem to wear the uniform of a lieutenant,  though)  I went over to Linda’s house and told her and her family and what a shock that was to them. Anyway, two weeks later in January of 1970, Linda is taking me to the recruiting depot and there I am enlisting into the Army for 4 years! (Two weeks after enlisting I get my draft notice,  so the timing was sure right).

    I wound up spending about 10 weeks at Ford Ord, California and I can positively say, that was the most miserable 2½ months of my life. Once again I was an outsider. I was far from a prude but I never got used to the vulgarity and harassment. I never seemed to really fit in and it sure seemed like I was always the oddball. Any time I wasn’t watching out for myself  I was thinking of Linda. I loved her so much and I was so insecure. I was afraid I was going to lose her to someone else.  About four weeks after I got to Fort Ord I called Linda one Wednesday night and I asked her if we could get married right away, between basic training and my advanced training. She said, Yes, and so on March 28^th, 1970 Linda Louise Olson became Linda Louise Low. I can truly say that was the best day of my life.

    Our honeymoon was spent in San Francisco and then I was off to Ft. Devins, Massachusetts (near Boston) for my advanced training. It was kind of a rude awakening to learn that I would be copying Morse code in the service instead of searching out spies, but by then I learned I had been snookered and it was best to shut up and keep my mouth closed. It was the first time I had been away from home and I was lonely. When I reflect on my life in the service, the predominate memories are always of loneliness.

    It was about two months before Linda would join me in Massachusetts, so to help pass the time I joined the Army Band. It was a wonderful experience because we would march the troops to school each morning playing patriotic marches. My desire to play in the band had nothing to do with the fact that band members were exempt from KP. We met lots of people and had lots of good times. We spent nine months at Fort Devins before I graduated. They were the carefree days of spring and summer and we spent every free moment traveling around New England.

    Starting in October and November, just before I graduated, they started sending out assignments. I wanted to go to Germany. I had studied German in high school and college but my first assignment was to Viet Nam. Before I left, I was reassigned to Panama, back again to Viet Nam, Sinop Turkey, back yet again to Viet Nam and finally to Germany. This was bizarre even by Army standards,   but the Lord was still ordering my footsteps.

    I arrived in Frankfurt, Germany on a bone-chilling cold, rainy night in December and boy was I excited. After a couple of days of processing,  transportation was arranged and I boarded a train for Nürnburg, West Germany. I was really shocked to hear people talking German and I was surprised at how little I understood. The way we spoke German in school was much different from the conversational German I was hearing so it took a couple of months before I was able to understand most of what people were saying.

    Our base was in the small town of Hertzogenauräch, which was just outside of Nürnburg. It was a former Lüftwaffe air base which the Americans took over after the war. It was in the country and it was beautiful. The people were friendly and when they discovered that I spoke a little German, they went all out and were most hospitable.

    Unfortunately, my work was not so pleasant. Imagine, if you will, a series of rooms about 25 feet wide and about 150’ long all inside of an old German Air Force hanger. This is where the Army Security Agency had set up a radio intercept post to monitor Warsaw Pact countries' military activities. Each of these rooms had walls of radio receivers and about 25 men who were assigned to monitor certain military targets. So we spent 8 hours a day listening and copying enemy Morse code. The atmosphere was like that of a college fraternity house. Lots of pranks and harassment,  and being one of the Newgs (new guys) I and about three others were getting tormented constantly. It reminded me so much of high school and I was miserable -  and I didn’t have Linda.

    Usually we would have to copy our assigned targets once or twice an hour. Then, we could go off to the snack bar or just stand around our positions jawing with some of the other operators. One night, on my way to the snack bar, I started to walk by these two guys who were talking about religion. Then, I did not consider myself a Christian. I had gone to church a couple of times growing up, and of course, I went to church with Linda and sang in the choir. But I went for the companionship of Linda, not because I was interested in religion. But something in these guys' conversation caught my attention so I stayed and listened (pretty rude huh?)  

    They were talking about a biblical prophet in our day.  Although I was not a Christian, neither was I ignorant.  I had never heard about prophets in our day. Where in the world did someone come up with an idea like this? Usually when confronted with something I didn’t agree with, I would just leave it alone. But I just couldn’t leave this alone. Every time I asked a question there would be an answer.  When I asked for proof they went back to the Bible. It seemed so natural to use the Bible (which even I knew was a special book) as the final authority on questions of religion. The more and more we talked the more questions I had and the more deeply I wanted to know. I couldn’t even explain this desire that seemed to well up within me.

    Now the two guys that were talking were Ken Scheibe and John Heath.  John was a searcher just like I had become. When we asked Kenny how he got this understanding he had he invited us over to his apartment to listen to some audio tapes of someone called William Marrion Branham. The tapes we listened to spanned a time frame from 1948 through 1965 and to me they were revolutionary. This minister had scripturally-based answers for questions I couldn’t even put into words. The things he said didn’t offend me. In fact, there was little that he said I couldn’t agree with totally. It was the beginning of a major change in my life.

    Kenny should have never been sent to Germany. He had spent some time in the United States before being sent to Viet Nam. After his time in Viet Nam he only had about 9 months left to serve and yet the Army wanted to send him to Germany. According to Army policy they would not send servicemen to Europe unless they had a couple of years, or longer, to serve. Yet they kept wanting him to go, and he didn’t want to go. Connie, his wife, was pregnant with their first child and she was having complications. Army doctors even stated that she should not go to Europe and that Kenny should stay with her, but his orders did not get changed. It was then that he realized that perhaps God was dealing with him and there was a reason for his going to Germany. Realizing that, they packed their bags and over to Germany they went. The first thing that happens is that they meet John Heath, and shortly thereafter, myself.

    John Heath and I were walking questions and Kenny, as much as he was able, tried to answer those questions or direct us to where we could find the answers. Everything I was learning felt right to me but I still wasn’t totally committed to embracing this new way of looking at things - indeed,  this new way of life. This all changed for me one night after work.

    I was so lonely for Linda. Here I was in a country I had always wanted to be in and I wanted to explore and share it with my honey. But she didn’t want to come. This was in 1971 and there were lots of terrorist activities in Europe, especially in Germany. Remember the Baader-Meinhof gang? Lots of bombs going off in American military compounds. To make the situation worse, American newspapers were running lots of articles about how the Germans didn’t want the Americans in their country etc. etc.. In some areas that was certainly true. But the overwhelming German attitude that I found was,  if you treat them right, they will treat you right. Anyway,  Linda was pretty spooked about coming over to Germany. Nothing I could say would convince her. I tried begging, pleading and even demanding, but to no avail. She was adamant about staying in California.

    I talked with Kenny about this and he said we should commit it to prayer, so after work that evening we went into the base chapel and prayed. I can’t remember exactly what I prayed, but I know it basically consisted of, please Lord get Linda to change her mind and bring her to Germany to be with me. After praying,  we went to the mess hall and had midnight breakfast. (I’ve always handled stress by eating, and boy does it show now)

                             Anyway three or four days later I get a letter from Linda stating that she was coming to Germany. I was speechless! After months of pleading with her, within 24 hours of my praying she wakes up and knows she has to go to Germany!  I couldn’t wait to tell Kenny. This was my first indication that God really does answer prayer. From then on I was committed to following what I was hearing from, and about, William Branham. I had made a step in the right direction and I recognized that God had responded. 

Job 5:8-9
 I would seek unto God, and unto God would I commit my  cause: Which doeth great things and unsearchable;  marvelous things without number:

    Later on that year on May 9th, 1971 Kenny baptized me in the Name of the Lord Jesus Christ according to Acts 2:38.  It was in a dirty farmer's settling pond but it couldn't have been any sweeter than if it had been in the river Jordan!

Other Voices - Linda Low     

    John had been gone for quite some time and was always pleading with me to join him. Normally, I would jump at the chance to travel.  But the newspapers were full of all the troubles surrounding American serviceman in Europe - the hatred displayed in physical attacks, the high cost of living, etc. - and it frightened me.  We had some debts to payoff, so I used that excuse to stay home.

    Then one day I received a letter from John, as usual, filled with the beauty of the area, his loneliness and such.  But it also contained an unusual note. "I was so desperately lonely today that Ken (a dear friend who introduced him to Bro. Branham's teachings) suggested we go to the chapel and pray that you would come."  Since my husband was not a religious person this struck me as odd but not earth shattering.   There is nothing about that night different from all the rest except one - when I awoke the next morning I KNEW I was going to Germany.  I presented this idea to my family that morning and could only reply to their questions that I just know that I know.   I wrote John to tell him I was making arrangements to come.  Within 24 hours of their prayers the Lord had totally changed my heart and mind.

    I really made a pest out of myself to Ken & Connie, always wanting to come over to their apartment and listen to tapes and talk about God. I was so excited. As usual, my enthusiasm overcame my common sense. Linda flew into Frankfurt, West Germany about a month later. Ken & Connie had driven me up to pick her up and she and I snuggled all the way back. We said very little while we were with Ken & Connie on the way back, but after they dropped us off at our new apartment I couldn’t keep my mouth shut. I told her everything I had started to believe, for most of which I didn’t know the reason why. It’s not that I didn’t have a scriptural basis for my new found religion, it’s just that I couldn’t remember what, or where, the scriptures were for what I was believing. Linda was marvelous trying to understand but I was extremely poor explaining what I believed and the reasons why. Couple that with the fact that she had been traveling for about two days, she was tired and it looked like I had completely gone off of the deep end, she later told me, "If there had been an airplane going back to California, I would have been on it!"

    The next couple of weeks were not very pleasant. I was about as subtle as a hand grenade and many times when she would ask a question, I usually had to say, "I don’t know, I’ll have to ask Kenny."   I said that so many times she began to dislike Kenny before she really began to know him, and we started having some problems within our marriage. No,  we never had any fights or anything like that, but we weren’t as close as we once were. A closeness I yearned for and couldn’t bear to lose. As the months went on I stopped talking to her about religion. Ken and Connie, by this time, had left for the United States, and I felt alone.

    I made a conscious decision to set aside my new-found beliefs for my wife. I knew what I was believing was right, but I couldn’t stand the gulf that was growing between my Linda and I. I never disbelieved what I knew to be the truth, but I didn’t practice it. I didn’t talk about it, I tried to not even think about it. Wonderfully, my relationship with my wife returned to normal and all seemed okay again.

    We spent two idyllic years in Germany after Ken & Connie left. We traveled extensively in our 1958 Volkswagen, putting almost 100,000 kilometers on it before it died.  In 1972 they consolidated the Army, Navy and Air Force field units into one big intercept station in the southern German town of Augsburg. I rapidly increased in rank so we had a little more money with which to travel. We spent holidays in Austria, Switzerland, Belgium, Denmark, Liechtenstein and, of course, all over Germany. In 1972 the Summer Olympics were held in Munich, West Germany and one of Linda’s Swedish relatives offered us a ticket to attend the opening day ceremonies. What a wonderful experience that was! We had seats about 20 rows down from where they lit the Olympic torch. It’s too bad that these games were spoiled by the terrorists which killed some of the Israeli athletes.

    After setting aside religious matters Linda and I regained the closeness which we previously enjoyed and both desperately wanted to re-establish. I would like to add at this point that even though Linda didn’t understand why I believed certain things (that women shouldn’t cut their hair and that women should not wear pants or shorts), she was always respectful of my position as her husband and she tried to follow what I believed out of respect for me. I can think of no greater demonstration of her love and dedication to me.

    We enjoyed traveling together and experiencing new and exciting countries. We acquired our first parrot in Germany and it didn’t take long for Linda and the bird to reach an understanding. She would put up with the bird (and wouldn’t cook it) as long as I was around. We didn’t have many friends, plenty of acquaintances, but not very many close friends. Our travels were generally by ourselves, although were did enjoy Linda’s sister,  Terri,   and her Uncle Frank Gamelin visiting us while were we there.

    In 1972 the Army was downsizing the Army Security Agency and was offering early outs for certain people. I didn’t think I would qualify because of the extensive training I had been given, making me one of only five people in the Army qualified to do my job. Linda and I thought long and hard about possibly making the Army a career since I was advancing so rapidly. We loved the travel and thoroughly enjoyed Europe.  The only problem that we could see was the assurance that if I did reenlist, it was almost a foregone conclusion that I would be sent on a years' hardship tour (somewhere where you couldn’t take your wife). We didn’t like the sound of that so we applied for, and were granted, an early out.