My Day as a Hostage…

Being a military family that’s constantly on the move provides ample opportunities for interesting stories and adventures… But this is bound to be, by far, the strangest Bird Experience of them all. My Dad, being responsible for yet another “mock security scenario”, thought it would be fun to include the entire family in the Garrison’s “mock security scenario!” So Drayton, Carolyn, Mom, and I got the, hopefully once-in-a-lifetime, experience of being hostages in an armed shooter scenario on Panzer Kaserne.

We weren’t quite sure what we were in for at first… To be honest, I was a little apprehensive about the whole thing. Almost as if it might be tempting fate to even pretend to be in a situation like that… And while we knew that we would be contributing to ensuring that such an atrocity never actually does happen on the base, I just didn’t know how I’d handle being held at gun point, even if everyone was just firing blanks. But we are nothing but enthusiastic and supportive of Stuttgart Army Garrison, and they were desperate for civilian volunteers, so onward we went (at the crack of dawn) to spend a day as a hostage!

They only asked two questions when we got there: Are you afraid of smoke and explosions? Are you afraid of heights? And that’s when I knew we were in for a little more than we’d bargained for. :) Carolyn and I opted for the “no heights” option, not necessarily because either of us is afraid of heights, but because at 7am the prospect of climbing out of a third story window during a fire-truck rescue just seemed like it was asking a little much of our coordination. :) But Mom and Drayton were up for the challenge! And were immediately bloodied up (ie. painted) with all sorts of gruesome injuries… Carolyn and I were perfectly happy to accept roles as “unharmed" hostages”… :) 

Carolyn and I were sent to the psychiatric clinic where the scenario would begin, while Mom and Drayton headed to the elementary school (oddly enough, the same elementary school Mom attended as        a little kid when Ko was stationed at Stuttgart almost 40 years ago!)… Carolyn and I were relieved to find that our very cute, ex-military, mock-shooter was incredibly sweet in real life… Carolyn and I found the whole process of being hostages actually rather hilarious… Before the swat team entered to “save” us, he was staging the scene, shifting us here and there at the back corner of the building where he had barricaded us in… At one point he ever, very sweetly requested, “Do one of you mind coming over by me and sitting in this chair? I want to hold a gun to someone’s head, if that’s alright?” Carolyn nearly died of laughing. ;) Our only instructions were to scream as much as possible, and do anything that could possibly challenge or confuse the swat team and police forces, when they were trying to recue us… After all, the purpose was to test their abilities to perform in difficult situations…

The actual rescue was slightly anti-climactic. We hit the ground. Screamed. And waited. Then after the shooter had been “taken down,” Carolyn and I decided to shake things up a little and make a run for it… So that’s what we did! We ran out the door. But had somehow not anticipated that there would be more armed police awaiting us… We were greeted on exit by a crowd of very loud police men with guns, screaming to hit the ground… And boy, you should have seen Carolyn drop. So enthusiastic was she in her role, that she actually scraped up her knee… Haha :) The next 2-3 hours were incredibly mundane… Lying on the floor with hands over heads, waiting for medical assistance for the very loud fellow hostage next to us who was fake-dying from a fake-bullet wound, getting our statements taken, being corralled in one spot and then another, and Carolyn even had to identify the “body” of the shooter… :)

We were finally on our way back to the assembly point for the scenario, when we realized that Mom and Drayton’s rescue was only just beginning… And sure enough, out they come from the third story window… Once on the ground, the German’s took the whole thing very seriously; Mom was even strapped to the stretcher and hauled off for “mock medical treatment!” :)

   

All in all, it was quit the experience… Fingers crossed it will be the first and last time I am ever a hostage.

We celebrated later by making a trip to the Hamburger Fish Festival in downtown Stuttgart. It was the first festival we ever went to in Germany… And it was just as delicious this year as last! :) It’s hard to believe that that means we’ve now been living in Europe for a year… Time flies when you’re having fun!!!

With Love from Germany… <3 Mary Elizabeth