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And we loaded the ammo, which some of us had never done before.

So we thought, wow, this is real.

And then we drove up to the border.

And when the fog burnt off, the Soviet tanks on the other side of the border were aimed at us.

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Welcome to episode 41 of Cold War Conversations. Today we talk with Neil Guzman again. He was an

M60A1 tank commander in West Germany tasked with defending the Foulder Gap,

which was a key likely Warsaw Pact attack route into the heart of West Germany.

We talk about his rushed initial deployment where he faced Warsaw Pact tanks right across the border,

details of various exercises he was in,

and how the US troops interacted with the West German population.

Before we start, I'd like to thank our latest supporters, William Wallace, Eric Schultz,

and James Chilcott, as well as all our other Patrions who are supporting the show and getting

exclusive content too. If you'd like to join this exclusive band, just go to

Cold War Conversations.com and click on the support the podcast option. So without further ado,

we welcome again, Neil Gzman. So you arrive in West Germany.

Where are you based in West Germany? Well, we were actually assigned to an air base. It was an

air base that wasn't in use at the time, and it was used during World War II and

later and then abandoned for a while, and then it became an army base. So we were assigned to

...