In the Ballroom of a hotel in Nashville, TN, Coach Tom Roncoli held the microphone, speaking directly to smiling faces watching him. They were listening to his heartfelt words, remembering with him a time more than forty
years in the past, in a land more than an ocean away. It had been in the early 1950's, when many in the listening group had been players on one of his winning football teams.
Coach Tom recalled arriving at the new American High School in a place called Kaiserslautern, Germany.
The school was filled with 'Brats', a hodgepodge of
military kids, brought together by the circumstance of their fathers sent to a foreign country to maintain a peace, and rebuild a country that had been devastated
by war only few years before. The kids were teens accustomed to resettling every two years, some even less. They had come from all over the US, tossed together in a sea of unfamiliar landmarks, expected to adapt to the new
surroundings, and live as normal a life as they could.
As he talked of those early days, of pulling together a football team from a pool of guys who had not played together before, he smiled and recalled his trepidation. Coach Tom was a young teacher from Michigan, not a product of the military machine, as were the students trying out for the team. These kids knew a lot about the world. Some had lived in other foreign lands, most of them talked
about places like Fort Hood, TX, Fort Bragg, NC and DC. They didn't know what it was like to grow up in one town.
"I wasn't sure I could do a good job," he smiled, "and I knew you guys expected something of me that I wasn't sure I had."
Evidently he had more than they expected. He pulled that nomadic crew of guys together, built a winning football
team out of them, and went on to build more winning football teams out of other Military Brats who followed. The trophies are still on display in that high school, even after these 40 plus years.
Not everyone listening to coaches words that night were former players. Also seated in the room, listening with their own store of memories, were guys and gals who had been a part of what has become known as K-Town. They were in
Nashville for a reunion, something many of them thought would never happen to
them. "I never had a hometown," one of the girls, now a grandmother of three said, as she greeted a former classmate. "I just never thought something like this
would happen."
"Me either," was the response heard time and again during the three day reunion,as one after another K-town Raider hugged and reminisced. There were tears of joy and exuberant greetings, as one after another found an old friend, and some even found an old flame. Former games played were discussed, dances were recalled, events in the dormitory were laughed about. Castles were talked about,
the senior class trip to Italy was fondly seen in the mountain of pictures contributed by all. Former teachers were remembered, and of course a typical cry was, 'what ever happened to old, so and so?" and more memories would come pouring back as everyone passed around yearbooks and photo albums.
It was a reunion that was never expected. A reunion of 'brats' who had truly united in a bond the stretches beyond a typical teenage scenario. These were people who had come together in a foreign country between 1953 and 1959, to touch each others lives for only a couple of years, and who had formed a relationship that would span time.
The reunion weekend strengthened bonds, deepened love and caring, and everyone there, brats and spouses alike, felt something very special. There's something about military Brats that Coach learned in those early years in
K-town. It was the same something that was happening now at the reunion in Nashville, TN, USA. They weren't just friends, they were family. And he knew he was a part of that family, just as he had been 40 years ago, in an
overseas American High School known as, K-Town. |
