In the mid 1960s my dad was a U.S.Army Motor Sergeant for an armored unit in Europe.

Every year the unit would spend time at the firing range.

They also spent time each year on boarder guard between what was East and West Germany.

The Squadron Commander was then a LtCol whose name began with the letters, Bat…

The troops called him LtCol Batman.

He took it to heart.

His Command Sergeant Major went as far as contacting Bob Kane, who was co-creator of the Batman comic book series. The Sgt. Maj. explained about the troops calling the commander Batman and asked permission to use the Batman emblem on all of the squadron vehicles.

Bob Kane sent a letter back granting permission and included a comic strip large enough to frame and hang on the commander’s wall.

The comic strip showed Robin sitting in the tank commanders hatch of a tank with Batman in the Batmobile next to it. The caption was Robin saying, “How do you like my new ride?” The tank displayed the Bat Emblem.

Each company in the squadron was assigned a different color for their Bat Emblems. I remember that the Squadron Commander’s color was Gold, Hq company was yellow.

The squadron went to another location (I don’t remember which location) once for some field exercise. Dad said the post commander apparently did not like having tanks, or I guess any tracked vehicles, on his post.

Just inside the main gate was an older tank on static display. On the sides of said tank was painted a white silhouette of a horse.

Dad said the morning after they arrived on post, the post awakened to a large white Bat Emblem where the horse formerly resided, on both sides.

I asked my Dad if he had helped paint the Bat Emblem on the tank.

He said that he had not painted the tank. He also said that he knew exactly where the paint and brushes had been acquired.

The morning the Bat appeared on the tank the Squadron Commander was called to the Post Commander’s office.

The Post Commander wanted all of the individuals involved to be punished, severely, for defacing his display.

For some reason, no one ever discovered who had done the deed, but my Dad’s platoon had grilled ribeye steaks one evening not long afterward, with the LtCol’s complements.

Just for clarity: The son of the LtCol and I were friends. We went to school together and were members of the same Boy Scout Patrol. He filled in some of the information my Dad had not told me.

Edited: to correct autocorrect error and a grammatical error to make the story easier to read.

Edit 2: MOD informed me I violated rule 3. I made changes in an effort to conform. If this is acceptable, the story line has not changed, only Identifying information.

I also read the rules again.