I never had to use any of those skills but the training was helpful, as I tended to party and drink pretty hard in those days and then crawl into work with a terrific hangover and no sleep. Driving around Stuttgart on autopilot was pretty simple after having advanced driving skills training. I remember once, driving back from Muenchen (Munich) in VW bus full of field grade officers. I had been up for about 28 or 30 hours at that point as part of a field training exercise. Driving the officers back to Kelly Barracks, I must have drifted off to sleep about two or three times - once Major G____ tapped me on the shoulder and asked if I was okay to drive! But they seemed to trust me as no one took me from the wheel and we arrived at the base safe and secure. I ended up working about ten more hours for a grand total of nearly 45 hours straight without sleep. To this day that is a personal record and I really don't think I am up to breaking it any time soon.

One thing though, I never drove on off duty. I never took the time to get a European driver's license or a car for off post shenanigans. This probably saved my life and kept me out of jail. I used the bus system and the train system to get virtually anywhere I needed to be on off duty hours and have a stable of good solid friends and roommates with cars for those trips into town with the gang. But the trouble those trips caused is a different story all together.