From the S&S archives: Meet the McCools of West Berlin

(EDITOR'S NOTE: This is another in a series of articles dealing with how American families, of varying military ranks and home backgrounds, live overseas.)

MEET DONNA and A/1C Keith McCool and the little McCools — Terry, 5, Sandra Kay, 4, and Garry 3. They are an Air Force family living behind the Iron Curtain in one of the most exciting cities in the world — Berlin.

Keith McCool came to the divided city in September 1958 and was assigned as club steward at the Tempelhof Air Base officer's open mess. But just as Donna and the kids were leaving the States to join him two months later, Khrushchev dropped a verbal blockbuster on the city by demanding the Western Allies get out of Berlin within six months.

"Everyone told me I was sure crazy to take the kids and go to Berlin when it looked like things were going to happen," Donna explained. "After awhile I began to wonder myself if I was doing the right thing."

Keith drove down from Berlin and met the family at Rhine-Main Airport in Frankfurt when they arrived in Germany. It was when they were on the way to Berlin and had stopped at the checkpoint at Helmsted before making the 110-mile trip through the Soviet Zone that Donna began to feel uneasy.

"I saw Russian soldiers carrying guns and they came up to the car while Keith was inside getting his papers checked and they looked at the decals on the car we had put on after the vacation we had taken that summer," she said.

"But the kids weren't scared. They waved to the soldiers and the soldiers smiled and seemed real friendly. Then later, on the autobahn, we saw a convoy of Russian soldiers and, lots of tanks and the, soldiers waved to the kids too. I guess the kids were real excited seeing all those soldiers."

The McCools' biggest problem is housing. Although he holds a job that calls for a higher grade, Keith is in an Air Force career field which is overcrowded and he cannot get promoted at present. Because of his lower grade, he is not entitled to Government housing in Berlin, receives a housing allowance instead.

Keith found a nice apartment in a two-family house near Berlin Command headquarters in Dahlem before he sent for his family, However, they had just about settled down in their new quarters when the owner wanted the apartment for his newly married daughter.

Keith heard about an apartment on the lower floor of a house in the Lankwitz section and they moved in. It is a lot closer to Tempelhof, where he works, but far from the American community. But it has a nice yard for the three children and the German neighbors are friendly. Keith managed to get hold of some furniture and a refrigerator and Donna's feminine touch has made it homey.

"Now what do you think happened," Keith asked. "The owner just sold the house and the new buyer wants our apartment!"

Although many Americans complain about feeling marooned on the landlocked "island" of West Berlin, the McCools have not felt this confinement. Every Sunday they go for a ride around the city, visiting new places. They even discovered that there were honest-to-goodness farms in West Berlin.

Sometimes the family has a picnic and rides the boats at the Berlin Command's recreation center at Wannsee. The mansion and grounds were once owned by a Nazi Party functionary. Hitler was a guest there many times.

During the past two years, Keith has been making a color film on Berlin which he hopes to complete before he returns to the States.

One of his prize sequences was one he made of a very non-military object — the famous old Unter den Linden, now in the East Sector. Keith set the movie camera on a tripod and was making a pan shot of the street when he noticed two Communist policemen (Vopos) in the viewfinder running towards him.

"I just picked up the camera and ran toward the Brandenburg Gate to the West Sector with the Vopos at my tail," Keith explained.

Donna admits she has learned little German and gives two very good reasons for the lack.

"Most of the Germans I know speak English and they want you to talk English to them," she said. "And when you've got three kids to take care of it doesn't give you much time to do much else."

Donna also admits that she is lonely in Berlin, mainly because Keith's job at the club keeps him away from home a lot. She doesn't drive and finds it difficult to visit her friends in the American community. She is also homesick for her hometown — Middleport, Ohio.

"I met Keith there while he was stationed at Chanute Air Force Base back in 1953," she recalled. "He was on leave visiting his folks and a friend of mine introduced us. A year later we got married."

"Terry was born at the Stateside base where Keith was stationed. Then he got out of the Air Force for awhile and became a salesman. That was when Sandra was born: Keith didn't like a salesman's life, went back into the Air Force. Then Gary was born at Wright-Patterson Air Force Base in Dayton, Ohio."

Although Donna doesn't speak much German it doesn't keep her from shopping "on the economy," since there is always someone around who speaks English. She makes many of Sandra's clothes and some of her own.

Keith likes his job as club steward at the Columbia House, which is the Tempelhof Air Base's officers' open mess. Although he spent much of his career in the Air Force as a motion picture projectionist, he likes his job in the club even better.

As assistant to the club officer, Capt Robert J. Kelly, Keith is learning how to run everything from the kitchen to the front office of a medium-sized hotel.

His boss has been urging Keith to go to school nights to learn accounting.

"I guess I'd better get on the stick and start going to school again," Keith said. "I quit high school to come in the service but later I took some GED tests in the Air Force. They sent the high school equivalency tests to the school in my home town and they sent me a diploma."

Keith wishes the children were a little older so they could appreciate being in Berlin. At their age the backyard in Berlin looks like any backyard back home.

"When we take them on a trip over to the East Sector I try to explain that this is the Communist part of the city and I try to tell them what communism is," Keith added.

"But they're just kids and they don't understand a thing. All the while I'm talking they are waving to Russian soldiers."