Old bus stop delivers memories to Niles vet
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EDITOR'S NOTE: To suggest a veteran for this series, which runs weekly through Veterans Day, email Metro Editor Marly Reichert at mreichert@tribtoday.com.
NILES -- The empty building at 529 Martin Luther King Jr. Boulevard in Youngstown is an eyesore.
The small gray structure has sat empty for years. It was most recently occupied by Phantom Fireworks and a sign for the store still stands in the front of the lot.
While most driving through the area would not bat an eye, the building stands as a meaningful marker for Niles resident Jerry Tranovich.
In 1977, Tranovich, who was 18 at the time, was dropped off by his father at the building, which was then a Greyhound Bus terminal, to begin a journey that would take him from Youngstown to Cleveland and eventually, Baumholder, Germany, with the United States Army.
"I remember my dad dropping me off, we left my mom at home and I kissed her goodbye, she was crying," Tranovich remembered. "We came down here, to the bus terminal, and it wasn't long that we had to wait. I was on the bus and we went up to Cleveland."
Tranovich said the trip provided two new experiences for him. It was the first time he had ever ridden on a bus that was not a school bus, and after being sworn in at a federal building in Cleveland, Tranovich had his first plane ride. His destination was Fort Knox Military Base in Kentucky.
"By the time all of this took place, it was in the middle of the night," Tranovich said. "We got to Fort Knox at 3 a.m. It was pouring down rain. It was raining so hard you couldn't get off the bus without our feet being under water. The whole bus was just a bunch of scared kids."
As the heavy rain continued to pour and cause a deafening rattle off the top of the bus, Tranovich said a drill sergeant emerged in the vehicle and began barking commands at its occupants.
"They got us out in the middle of the rain and there were these little yellow footprints printed out everywhere where we had to stand," Tranovich said. "We were all standing in formation, and the seargant gave us the speech that we weren't civilians anymore, we're in the Army."
Tranovich said in the blink of an eye, basic training had begun.
"The next day, the hair came off and the uniforms went on," he said. "Within a week, we were all assigned to our training companies and platoons. Basic training was not easy. Very long days, a lot of yelling, a lot of marching and a lot of pushups. But by the time the last week rolled around, we were all actually having fun."
After finishing basic training, Tranovich remained at Fort Knox to attend the Armor Center School. Tranovich said he wanted to be trained as an aircraft mechanic because he thought it would lead to opportunities for good employment outside the military.
Tranovich experienced one dire error in his plan.
"They thought I said tank mechanic," Tranovich said.
He said that as of now, over 40 years later, he has still not found a tank to work on in civilian life.
After graduating from mechanic school, Tranovich was assigned to an armored battalion in Baumholder, Germany, where he worked in the motorpool.
"It was more or less just like a job," he said. "But there was a lot of military training involved with it too."
Tranovich said a key part of his job was to make sure the military vehicles were always "combat ready." He said to test the readiness of the vehicles, commanders would issue alerts, oftentimes early in the morning.
"An alert meant that everyone loaded up their vehicles with weapons and all of their personal gear as if going to war," Tranovich said. "Sometimes we even took the tanks on road marches before we heard over the radio that the alert was over. These alerts usually came once a month, in the middle of the night. It was never more real than in 1980, during the Iranian hostage crisis. The alerts came often."
Tranovich said by the end of his tour in Germany, he was in charge of the maintenance of 17 tanks, an armored personal carrier, a 58-ton tracked recovery vehicle, three trucks and three Jeeps.
"We would go up to the motorpool and start doing our thing, working on any vehicles that were down, and stuff like that," Tranovich said. "If anything was down, we stayed. There was no, 'oh, it's 5 o'clock,' You stayed until it was done."
Along with the work, Tranovich said he had to wake up every day at 5 a.m., which he still does to his day, and that physical training was at 7 a.m. He said the training typically involved about 15 minutes of calisthenics followed by running at least 2 miles.
Tranovich said his time in Germany was not completely consumed by work. He said in 1979, he used money that he had been saving for college to buy a car, along with his roommate.
"Now one might say that was a poor and foolish decision, but we had the most incredible time visiting cities and towns all over Germany," he said.
Tranovich said on one occasion, he drove to a discotheque that was 30 miles off base. He said at that disco, he met a woman named Sonja, who he asked to dance.
Though Sonja did not speak very much English, she and Tranovich got to know each other. Six months later, they were engaged.
"The very little bit of English she knew that she learned in school was more like proper English from England," Tranovich said. "When I talked, she didn't understand hardly anything I said. But, we made it work."
They have been married 43 years.
In August 1980, Tranovich's military tour came to a close, and he returned with Sonja to Trumbull County.
With his veteran status, Tranovich quickly was hired by the United States Postal Service. He worked as a letter carrier for the Niles Post Office for 37 years. Tranovich retired in 2017 with 40 years of government service.
"I'm what you'd call a Cold War veteran," Tranovich said. "That's everybody after World War II, all the way up until Russia was disillusioned in 1991. All those people, even though there were other conflicts going on, were all Cold War veterans.
"When people come up and thank me for being a veteran, I'm honored that they even recognize me, because I'm not a hero. I went over and I did my job. I trained to go to war, but I never did. Giving me the same respect that you give others, all I can say is thank you for supporting the military."
Walking through the parking lot of the old Greyhound bus terminal in Youngstown, Tranovich remarked how different it looked from his initial visit some 46 years ago. The building itself is slowly becoming engulfed in shrubbery from its back side. The long lanes where the buses used to park to take away people like Tranovich now sit empty.
"I didn't really expect to feel anything here, and now I'm getting all these visions from 1977," Tranovich said.
For Tranovich, his August visit to the bus stop where his Army journey began marks the beginning of a new adventure -- once again, back to Baumholder.
"I'm going to get a pass to go onto the base," he said. "Hopefully I'll be able to take some pictures and just see my old base where they used to make me do pushups."
Jerry Tranovich
AGE: 64
RESIDENCE: Niles
SERVICE BRANCH: Army Reserve, U.S. Army, 8th Infantry division, Company C, 2nd Battalion, 6th Armored Regiment.
MILITARY HONORS: Army Commendation Medal for meritorious service, Good Conduct Medal, Sharpshooter Award, expert in hand grenade
OCCUPATION: Retired as a letter carrier for the U.S. Postal Service
FAMILY: Wife, Sonja and daughter, Jennifer