Day 52 of 365

There's a story behind this beer glass. I served with the 1st Squadron, 2nd Armored Cavalry Regiment in Bayreuth, (then) West Germany back in the mid 80's. As most should know, Germany among many things is really good at making beer and our local beer was Maisel's (in German). Being 18 and away from home for the first time in my life I drank many a glass of Maisel's beer my two years there. For whatever reason I didn't keep a glass as a souvenir when I left but as luck would have it I would return to Germany in 1988 for a month long training exercise. We had some down time and a group of us went out on the town for a beer or two, or three. Even though we were nowhere near Bayreuth the pub we went to happen to serve Maisel's, which was surprising because just about every town has it's own brewery. I decided to keep a sourvenir this time. This glass survived traveling in a duffel bag from Germany back to Georgia, my 2 years in Georgia, travel from Georgia to Washington State, my 3 years there and another move from the Army to civilian life. Because I kept it as a keepsake I rarely used it to drink from, and I rarely drink, but one night I decided to use it for a new beer I picked up at the store. While sitting at the computer I got up and reached across the desk and barely hit the glass and it fell over and shattered. Doh!

Fast forward several years...a guy I served with over in Germany and I got in touch with each other and for whatever reason I told him about my glass. A couple months later I got the above glass in the mail. Patrick travels quite often to Germany and went out of his way to get me a new Maisel's glass while he was over there. This is the type of camaraderie the military fosters.

So tonight I raise my glass to all my fellow soldiers.