The first stop for almost all of them is the 21st Replacement Battalion, the gateway to the country for all soldiers except sergeants major, chief warrant officers 4 and 5, and senior commissioned officers. The unit is manned by some 70 administrative personnel and support soldiers in several buildings at Rhein Main Air Base outside Frankfurt. Most soldiers new to Germany, and their families, first go to the battalion's waiting area, a huge, often crowded room. There, assignments are made or confirmed and buses wait to take new arrivals to their duty stations. Soldiers, some in jeans and T-shirts, others still sporting basic training crew cuts and decked out in Class A uniforms, stretch out in chairs.
Parents try to control kids who slept on the plane and are now revved up with no place to go.
Families who have to spend the night at Rhein Main stay in a barracks across the parking lot from the waiting room. Despite the beds and relatively comfortable rooms, soldiers with young children who've just crossed a couple of time zones don't get much sleep. 1 Barry Makin was ready to get on with his first Army tour.