Saturday, March 12, 2011

Ramstein Club

This isn't a blog about Germany but it does take place here. It's about the Ramstein Club. You'll note I didn't say O Club or Officers Club. Those don't exit anymore in the Air Force, most bases now have some sort of all ranks club; another cost cutting measure.

Back in the day, when fighter pilots ruled the Air Force, and F-4s, then F-16s were based at Ramstein, the Ramstein O Club was an exciting place to be on a Friday night. Now Ramstein is a C-130 base and the closest fighter squadrons are eighty miles away at Spangdahlem. The only Friday night that is really worth attending at the O Club here at Ramstein is the first Friday of the month. The club puts out a pretty good spread and there's probably a 100-150 people that show up for that but most of them are gone by 1800. Usually, Rowdy is the only flight suit in the entire place. But we've been stirring things up. E-mailing friends here to come out and have some fun and we've had some pretty good results. Of course, it will never be like it was in the Cold War days when 400+ people would pack the old club, but we've had some good times here at the Ramstein Club.

Here's an example, karaoke at the club; yeah, it's come to that. Rowdy's new protege, Dude.


As you can tell, Dude is a pretty high energy guy and lots of fun. Regretfully, if you noticed in the video, not many people were still in the club; just a handful. That's pretty typical, even on a first Friday night. Even on those nights, by 2100 it's mostly us and a few friends. But, we're not here in Germany to go to the club, so most other Friday nights we're on our way somewhere. Even so, the demise of the Air Force Officer Club is a sad thing to see.

3 comments:

  1. ah yes, the memories . . .

    ReplyDelete
  2. That is just sad...oh and the news about the the loss of the O'clubs is bad as well...

    ReplyDelete
  3. Rowdy's new protege...I like that! haha.

    I'm glad you guys had a good time, even if it is not the same.

    ReplyDelete