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A tale about a buddy of mine, Dietmar Moser. We served together here in

Turkey for many years in uniform, then worked some projects here after

we both retired. I pushed him to move to the USA when he turned 65 ..

and suggested Charleston, where he now lives. I visit him each year ..

and will this year.

 

A nice guy who has an alligator pond behind his home. ;-) Butch

 

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Saturday, July 01, 2006

 

Immigrant's Experiences Span American Landscape: Dietmar Moser

 

BY ROB YOUNG

The Post and Courier

 

 

Forgive his sentimentality.

 

The adages come often, tucked into his conversation like sappy cliches

found in the self-help sections of bookstores.

 

" Keep on smiling, " he says.

 

In most hands, it might sound tired, ridiculous. It seems peculiar even now.

 

" It's a beautiful life, " Dietmar Moser says. " It's a beautiful, precious

world we live in. "

 

It lends him an odd sort of quaintness, a rare, unexpected dignity.

 

" I believe in peace. "

 

So few speak this way. So few have this much to say.

 

Moser cackles. He's prone to giggling fits and mischievous streaks.

Though now retired, Moser, a German immigrant, moved here from Turkey in

2001 to import olive oils, choosing Charleston for its ports. When he

laughs, rich and loud, somehow it sounds like gratitude.

 

" I thank God every day, always for breakfast, lunch and dinner. "

 

He cherishes visitors. As they leave his Mount Pleasant home, he stands

at the end of his driveway and places a hand over his heart, slightly

bowing.

 

He has an admission, though: He is scared to be alone.

 

So Moser talks, speaking more quickly now, about his father, an SS

officer in Nazi Germany, and then of his own improbable career as a

soldier in the U.S. Army.

 

Sharing quiets his solitude; it arrests his fear. And Moser must give,

he says, because so much, so much, has been given to him.

 

Father's land

 

His voice rises, his native inflection strong.

 

" He knew exactly, " Moser says, recalling his father. " He will die. "

 

In the days following the end of World War II, Russian troops tracked

his father to their family's home in Berlin. They burst inside, gunning

him down in front of Moser, then about 8, his sister and their mother.

 

" He said one thing, " Moser remembers.

 

" My son, Dietmar, I will live in your heart. Don't look. "

 

Moser's mother loved him so. She rejected Nazi beliefs, but devoted

herself to her husband, a doctor and horseman who won Olympic medals in

dressage at the 1936 Games, Hitler's attempt to showcase Aryan supremacy.

 

Her own father hated his son-in-law, Hitler and the regime. During the

war's duration, he moved the family to the countryside to escape the

violence and bombings.

 

" I never forget, " Moser says. " I went out and I said, 'Look, Mommy,

there is no sky. There is only airplanes.' "

 

His grandparents lost nearly everything. After the war, Moser's

grandfather spent eight months in a Russian internment camp. The

 

Soviet Union expelled many Germans. Some deserved punishment because of

their activities during the war. Others suffered simply because of their

German nationality.

 

Soviet soldiers, too, removed Moser and his family from their home the

day his father was killed. His mother kicked and screamed as they

grabbed her by the hair and arms, throwing her onto a truck. Her crime

was her marriage.

 

They separated Moser and his sister from their mother, eventually

putting them on a train to Russia with hundreds of other children. Their

mom, distraught, volunteered to work as a supervisor on the trains,

secretly hoping to find her son and daughter.

 

The three reunited by chance. Moser spied his mother first.

 

" I turned sister around so she wouldn't say, 'Mommy,' " he says.

 

They escaped, jumping from the train during a stopover in Warsaw,

Poland, then hitchhiked and walked home to Berlin. To survive, they

begged and stole food. The trip took three months.

 

Moser weighs those times, the war and his father. He says his mother

taught him to love unconditionally, so he tries to reconcile the man he

knew with the soldier he did not. He discovered later that his father

served mostly in Poland in bureaucratic roles.

 

" He never put his family name in a horrible situation, " he explains. " He

stayed away from this. He was not interested in being evil. "

 

To think otherwise would be too painful. The child still needs his

father to make sense.

 

To the moon

 

Moser's house is chock-full of handmade rugs, Egyptian relics, souvenirs

from his travels, medals, photographs and knickknacks. They edge onto

countertops and tablesides.

 

" I've got so much junk, " Moser kids.

 

Once he had so little.

 

He came to America in 1955, poor, uncertain of the nation and its

language. He secured a green card by earning a scholarship through

Columbia University in New York City. The school allowed Moser to study

English while maintaining a job. He worked at the Waldorf-Astoria for

two years, becoming a chef, learning about the trade and America.

 

His new home consumed him.

 

" The challenge was so big that I wanted to go deeper and deeper into

it, " he says.

 

He spent vacations traveling. In Miami, Moser spotted one of his

favorite actors surrounded by women at a posh hotel. He had to say hello.

 

Moser introduced himself to Jackie Gleason, told him how much he enjoyed

his shows. They chatted. Gleason asked what Moser did.

 

" He said, " Moser remembers, 'You know, I'm a very spoiled cat. I like to

spoil myself and the people I take out. Why don't you work for me?' "

 

Bang, zoom, to the moon.

 

Moser left New York to create buffets for Gleason and his guests on

train trips.

 

" This looks more beautiful than a woman, " Gleason would tell Moser of

the food displays.

 

Still, Moser wanted to see America. He left after six months.

 

He toured New Orleans, and worked at the famed Broadmoor Hotel in

Colorado Springs, Colo. Moser moved to Reno, Nev., and Lake Tahoe,

Calif., before he and a partner opened a restaurant, the Golden

Horseshoe, in San Jose, Calif.

 

" Have I told you about Frankie Boy? " he asks.

 

Frank Sinatra, Sammy Davis Jr. and Dean Martin came to his restaurant

once. Sinatra ordered a tenderloin medium rare, then sent it back to the

kitchen without trying it, claiming the chef undercooked it.

 

" I shouldn't be telling this, " Moser says, laughing.

 

Angry, Moser tossed it to the floor, then garnished it and put it back

on a plate.

 

It was perfect.

 

Sinatra stopped by the kitchen after the meal and tipped Moser $50.

 

A year later in 1960, he got two more visitors at the restaurant during

a birthday celebration for his partner. They showed their badges, agents

of the FBI, and handed him a notice from the U.S. Army.

 

He had been drafted. The government had been looking for him because

Moser neglected to register for the draft during his travels.

 

He threw up his hands.

 

" Stay, " Moser told the agents. " Enjoy the party. "

 

His lot

 

He only wanted a little off the sides. The barber shaved the middle of

his head instead.

 

Welcome to the Army, Pvt. Moser.

 

" I learned quickly to say, 'Yes sir. When? What time?' " Moser explains.

 

And he understood how to make the best of his lot.

 

Moser advanced through airborne school, survival training and Ranger

courses, becoming a Green Beret.

 

The service required two years' time from its conscripts. Moser stayed

in for nearly 30 years. He found it a good fit, adapting easily to his

position and place.

 

He served in the United States, Turkey and Germany during his career,

mostly as a senior enlisted aide. In the 1970s, he worked in Paris, then

in Belgium for Gen. Alexander Haig at NATO headquarters.

 

Before then, it was Vietnam, where he earned a Purple Heart for shrapnel

wounds.

 

Moser became an American citizen in 1965, and his sister, who lives in

Woodbridge, Va., moved to the United States six years later.

 

He went on to earn a master chef degree and received several culinary

awards while in the military and afterward.

 

In Turkey, the home country of his then-wife, he opened a coffee shop

and bar. Moser even started a company to sell tractor-trailers with

pliable curtain systems that allowed partitioning.

 

Yet, the soldier survives. He cannot tear himself from those years,

particularly Vietnam. The moment persists.

 

" To lose one human being, it is sad, " he says.

 

His friend, the one who was blinded, invited Moser to his home after he

returned from the war. He took him to his garden.

 

" He said look at these beautiful roses, " Moser says. " I tell you, I cried. "

 

Splendor

 

He's coy about his age, though it's not hard to estimate.

 

Recently, Moser hosted a joint birthday party for a friend and himself.

Several people dropped by to enjoy his hospitality. Moser knew many of

them from Seacoast, a nondenominational church where he serves as a

greeter. Some, he knew earlier.

 

" If he can help you, he'd give his right arm to help you, " says Fritz

Beisser, a longtime pal.

 

Moser is thankful for most everything, his friends; his first car, a

white 1958 Ford Thunderbird hardtop convertible; Radio City Music Hall,

where he watched films as a young man; even the sun, moon and stars.

 

Moser named his three daughters for the heavens. Guenes means " sun " in

Turkish, Dolunay, " moon, " and Yildiz, " star. "

 

He tries to find the splendor in all cultures, heeding his mother, who

at 93 still lives in Germany, and her lesson _ unconditional love.

 

" Every country has its beauty, " Moser says.

 

He remembers when he first came to America. He believed it a privilege.

 

He wishes everyone felt the same. He seeks to remind others, carrying a

message earnest and urgent.

 

" I need to share, to show what a human being can accomplish, " Moser says.

 

He passes on the tale of an immigrant, the tale of a patriot, along with

a contribution - his humanity, his endeavor to lessen the distance.

 

" Isn't it beautiful? " he asks without pausing.

 

" Isn't it great? "

 

 

Dietmar Moser

 

OCCUPATION: Retired chef, senior enlisted aide, U.S. Army.

 

FAMILY: Three daughters, Guenes, Dolunay, Yildiz; a sister, Ingrid;

mother, Alice.

 

I LOVE TO: Travel, go fishing, ride my bike, play tennis.

 

FAVORITE BOOK: " Your Best Life Now: Seven Steps to Living at Your Full

Potential " by Joel Osteen.

 

FAVORITE LOCAL RESTAURANTS: My own kitchen, Sermet's Corner, SeeWee,

Cypress, Water's Edge.

 

IF I HAD TO DO IT ALL OVER AGAIN: I am really a God-blessed person. I

would dream again to have such children.

 

PEOPLE WHO HAVE INFLUENCED MY LIFE: My grandparents; my mother; Pamela

Strich, the social and residence administrator for the diocese of

Charleston; Lt. Gen. James B. Vaught, a 1946 graduate of The Citadel and

veteran of three wars; Greg Surratt, senior pastor at Seacoast Church;

Fritz Beisser, longtime friend.

 

THE PLACE I GO WHEN I NEED TO THINK: Anywhere I can hear the sound of

flowing water.

 

SOMETHING MOST PEOPLE DON'T KNOW ABOUT ME: I'm adventurous and I enjoy

new things. I'd probably try almost anything that's not extremely

dangerous and would risk leaving my children fatherless.

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