European Stars and Stripes (Newspaper) - May 24, 1989, Darmstadt, Hesse Wednesday. May 24, 1989 the stars and stripes Page 9 is Vinco Cha Lcy Markus a Creel a West German forester Points out one of the saplings planted As part of the reforestation program at the Grafin Kiihr training area. At Graf frees Are valued and protected allies by v1nce Crawler Nurnberg Bureau Grafe Wohr. West Germany the forests of graft no or. Where soldiers and pilots go Lochew up the ground with live bullets and real bombs might just be a Haven for some of the Healthiest Trees in West Germany. Pan of the reason is dust. Graft no or officials stress that it just a theory but Dusi kicked up by military exercises appears to he neutralizing the effects of acid rain. Soldiers Don t need to be told about dust at the graft Wohr training area. It seeps into their clothes their food and their lungs into the engines of their tanks and the toes of their boots. And it drifts Down onto leaves powdering them White. It comes from the 15,000 truckloads of gravel a year that Are spread along Grafe Wohr s 400-plus Miles of unpaved roads. Tanks each of which can weigh 68 tons loaded pulverize the gravel daily. And a main ingredient of the dust is Limestone. Chemists understand that Limestone is alkaline and that the rain which drifts across the Border from Coal burning Czechoslovakia to the East contains Fulfur based acid. Non chemists have to take their word that the two poll values cancel each other out in Grafe Wohr. Still forester Markus the value of the dust might be overrated As an acid killer. It May have a positive effect pc Pecl said. But Only on a very narrow strip around the training area s still he added the dust probably does no harm either. I not a Cutrali or it is at least Neutral. Combat units usually come Here twice a year to practice shooting. Combat itself hinges on the land keeping your turf and taking the other Guy s. So. At graft Wohr. That s How soldiers train a unit takes turf and loses turf and shoots up turf and goes Home. Per pet said americans sometimes have trouble relating to the Forest they like open spacious landscape. They say we like open landscape for our overview they re not accustomed to the per pet is the Deputy of the West German Federal Forest office in graft Wohr the office that Battles to keep Graf Green while at the same time giving soldiers enough space and Forest to practice fighting some unit leaders think we Only want to establish the Forest for economic reasons. But ecology is sometimes Economy Markus Perpeet in a realistic in Iron mint. And that Means Trees. There s something about Trees that inspires both poets and politicians. It was american poet Soldier Joyce Kilmer who wrote that he would ties or Sec a poem Lovely As a Trees Are even More precious in West Germany which claims spiritual descent from the Forest and where schoolchildren Menrie wanderer s night song Goethe s homage to nature in the a i american youngsters learn the pledge of allegiance. In an Era of Oil spills acid rain and the greenhouse effect the world of nature has entered the Arena of politics. But whenever eyes turn to Grafe Muir. That Dusty noisy Mcclians de Blank spot on civilian maps of Northeast Bavaria the plays us Trump soldiers slatted worrying about grass greenery a Quarter of a Century ago and for tactical reasons not political ones. In 1938, the German army took Over a do in or so villages Southwest of Grafe Wohr moving the inhabitants out. For Halfa Century combat troops trained there and chewed up the ground adding the German word for wasteland to most of the place names where villages used to be. After world War ii the american army took Over graft Wohr for a training area of its own. And it was used at a very extreme i Perpeet said. Finally a commander in the 1960s pointed out that the Grafe Wohr training ground was becoming a desert. Since the Mission was to defend West Germany which is not a desert How useful was it to train soldiers in desert warfare at Grafe Wohr in the name of training realism and later environmentalism. The american and West German governments began pulling time and Money Back into the land. Per pet said half of the original Woodland in the 57,000-acre training area had been destroyed by the mid-l%0s. A third of that has been resurrected. The foresters have done this mostly by making berms and fences that keep military traffic out of fragile environments. Some unit leaders think we Only want to establish the Forest for economic he said. They think often we Only want to create Forest stands for Timber production but ecology is sometimes Economy per Peel said the forests of Grafe Wohr generate a lot of Money si.25 million Worth of Trees were felled and sold to the lumber Industry in l 87. But it costs that much every year in forestry efforts to keep Grafe Wohr s Trees on the map. And they do look As if they could stand a Good dusting of
