Disclaimer: I don't own anything.


Thursdays were Wilhelm Klink's favourite days of the week. His final class finished at three o'clock, giving him plenty of time to drive home and relax in the warm afternoon sunshine. Whenever he was caught, his housemate would always tease him and call him an oversized cat, to which Klink would puff himself up like in olden days and haughtily remind him that he was an iron eagle - he was just sunning his feathers. And each time, Hogan would offer a sloppy salute, his most cocky grin and a cheerful "whatever you say, Kommandant," before he brought out the chessboard for another game.

If you had asked him at the end of the war where he thought he'd end up, a quiet cottage just outside of Bridgeport, Connecticut would never have been his answer. Germany would have been his answer. And for a while, that would even have been true.

A few months after Germany's surrender - and more debriefings than Klink could ever have imagined - he had been formally employed as an official civilian liaison to the US Army. All the brass had said it was highly irregular but no one had been able to say no to Robert E. Hogan when he set his mind on something. Not even Wilhelm Klink. And so, he had thrown away his Luftwaffe uniform and traded it for civilian attire.

From the winter of 1945 until early 1948, he and the then Brigadier General Hogan had remained in West Germany, helping to 'keep the peace' and 'ensure a smooth transition'. Even now, Klink had no idea what that meant, but they had been needed and so they had stayed. It was a very confused time; they had just finished fighting the war and yet it felt as if they were still very much in the midst of one. Nevertheless, they had done their best with what they had, and Klink had no regrets or complaints about their years in the newly-fragmented West Germany.

In the spring of 1948, Hogan had received orders to report to a new posting in the Pentagon. He would be the head of a freshly formed, top secret troubleshooting team to manage any difficulties in West Germany. Klink was supposed to have stayed behind to assist Hogan's replacement. Yet, when it came time for the Brigadier General to ship out, Klink had shipped out with him. Later, he had found out that Hogan had threatened to resign with immediate effect should Klink not be permitted to accompany him. When he had confronted Hogan (threatening to give up his career for Klink was ludicrous), the former Colonel had just shrugged and said that they were a team and that the brass ought to know that by now. For the benefit of his remaining shreds of sanity, Klink had given up trying to understand Hogan not long afterwards.

For four years, they had lived relatively contently in Arlington, Virginia, managing what problems they could remotely and flying out to deal with the ones that required Hogan's unique problem-solving capabilities in person. They had even set foot in Korea a half dozen times, although their talents were mainly required in Europe. Klink thought, even now, that they could have done that very happily for the rest of their careers. He believed they had found their niche; somewhere they could do good and serve both their countries. Probably, they would have continued to lead the troubleshooting department for a long, long time, if it hadn't been for Project Y.

In the Fall of 1954, now Major General Hogan had been briefed on a prototype aircraft, one theoretically able to be faster, more streamlined and virtually undetectable. Hogan, who had flown every type of plane the US Armed Forces could boast (including a few from the RAF and more than a few former-Luftwaffe aircraft), told his superiors - even the designers - that it wouldn't work. He predicted engine failure, stating that the engine couldn't keep up with the stress. He begged them to reexamine the designs, to look at ways of shoring up the engine.

For the first time in a very long time, the US Air Force didn't listen, and Hogan paid the price.

Klink remembered that day more vividly than he cared to. It's horror was tied with the day that had grounded Klink permanently.

On a crisp October morning, they were driven to an airbase in Maryland where the first flight was to take place. Hogan stepped away from him and the half dozen Pentagon observers with a cheerful promise to be right back. He returned in a full flight suit.

The reckless man had pulled rank, insisting on piloting the doomed aircraft himself. Klink would have done the same, had he been able to, but that didn't stop himself from damning the man at the time.

The first series of tests, the aircraft aced. Smooth take off, perfect maneuverability - flying colours across the board. It was when the supervising General ordered Hogan to push the speed that the inevitable happened. The engine failed - exploded was more the term - Hogan ordering his crew to bail while he tried to land the dead plane. The plane crashed on the landing strip. Hogan was rushed to hospital, never to fly a military plane again.

His recovery (aided by Klink) was mercifully short, but they both knew - in an unspoken consent - that they would not return to their troubleshooting department at the Pentagon.

In January 1955, Hogan and Klink were transferred to their current posting; a top-secret military training academy just outside Bridgeport, Connecticut. Hogan was in undisputed command and he manipulated Klink into becoming his second in command. It was unorthodox, but they'd been a team for more than a decade by that time (if you counted Klink's occasional aid to the Unsung Heroes in Stalag 13) and they'd become used to each other.

Which is why they'd found it convenient to share a house a short drive from the academy. Sharing a house was a lot cheaper and less lonely than the alternative. It wasn't as if either of them had anyone else to share with; relationships had taken a back seat to the other priorities in their lives.

That wasn't to say that Hogan couldn't have his pick of any pretty frauleins that crossed his path - he was still young enough and charming enough that he was what Klink believed people called 'a catch' (American terminology was so strange) - and even Klink himself had nearly married his widowed secretary back at the Pentagon. They were both, for better or worse, married to their jobs. Whether it had been keeping the peace in West Germany, or troubleshooting problems in the same region from the Pentagon, or now training the next generation of spies and saboteurs, they were devoted to their jobs above all else.

Captain Kinchloe, on the other hand, had managed the impossible. He had a successful career and an incredibly successful home life - and he never seemed torn between either one.

In 1946, Kinch (Klink finally used to calling him that) had accompanied them on a trip from one base to another, but the snow had forced them to stop in a small, rural German village. Both Americans had called it a Christmas card village, which was strangely appropriate for the season. They were only there for three days but it was all Kinch needed to fall in love with a young war widow and her son. They married in March and returned to the US with Hogan and Klink. A happier family Klink had never seen.

So, naturally, when Hogan was recruiting his instructors, Kinch was the first person he called. The Captain taught a series of advanced technical courses - everything from radios to the latest developments in listening devices - while the basic and intermediary courses were taught by Master Sergeant Baker. Both men were held in a kind of awe and respect that Klink could only have dreamed of back when he was Kommandant of Stalag 13.

Even though the rest of the Unsung Heroes had long since left the service, they still came every now and then to offer their own expertise. Every year, Professor Carter came and taught a specialised six week demolitions course that inevitably caused the academy to be evacuated on at least a weekly basis. When he wasn't nearly blowing up their academy, young Carter could be found nearby, teaching Chemistry at Fairfield University. He had married Mavis Newkirk eighteen months after the war had ended, an event that had her and her beloved brother repatriated to the United States immediately afterwards.

Retired Captain Newkirk (married, father of three) was a permanent fixture at the facility. His speciality was in-depth safecracking, pickpocketing and forging classes. There were more complaints about the difficulty of Newkirk's classes than almost any other (second only to Hogan and Kinch's elite classes), but Newkirk's graduates came out perfect menaces to society, just like the Englander had intended.

It had taken a little under five years of Hogan's most relentless persuasion, but recently LeBeau had arrived from France - where he ran a very popular little bistro. The Frenchman taught the aptly named 'How to survive behind enemy lines' ("especially if you're stuck with someone who thinks the solution to every culinary problem is to mash some potatoes and add gravy" - said with a pointed yet fond glare at a loitering Newkirk). His course covered a little bit of everything; much like LeBeau's contribution to the Unsung Heroes. He'd only been there three months and he was already a favourite among the students.

In addition to their command responsibilities (such as they were for a top secret training facility), Hogan and Klink were also full-time teachers. Each year, Hogan taught a handpicked group of students everything they'd need to know should they have to run an operation like the Unsung Heroes. In addition, he taught more general classes on problem-solving, troubleshooting, going undercover, maintaining a network, and probably even a class on how to cause headaches for your opposite number (that was a course Klink knew Hogan could teach in his sleep). Klink taught a bit of this and that; advanced German, acting classes, his own troubleshooting classes, and yearly seminars on Germany in WW2.

Some of their graduates would be embedded into occupied Germany, every little bit helped to give them the background they would need to pretend they'd lived in his Fatherland their whole lives.

Adjacently to Klink's seminars, Hogan lectured on the Unsung Heroes operation. The classes were packed no matter what inhospitable time Hogan scheduled them to fit in with the rest of his courses. It wasn't every soldier that was fortunate enough to be taught by a two-star general that also happened to be Papa Bear.

To say that Hogan's students were in awe of him would be like saying Schultz was slightly fond of strudel. Even Kinchloe's technical students were awestruck whenever the General listened in on their classes.

Klink hoped he wasn't being immodest when he admitted that his students too held him in a sort of cautious awe. It was ironic. He'd finally received the respect he had longed for in the Luftwaffe and it was from the Allies.

Teaching may never have been the career he thought he would enjoy, yet it had been exactly what he had found the most fulfillment doing.

Fifteen years ago, Klink could never have imagined a life free from the insanity of old bubble-head and his fascist regime. Such a life of peacefulness and purpose seemed so utterly beyond his reach. Service to one military or another had taken the best years of his life, but he could finally say that he was proud of what he was.

He was former Luftwaffe Oberst Wilhelm Klink. He was a former Pentagon troubleshooter, and a full-time civilian asset attached to Camp 13, Connecticut.

He was a man who got to sit on his porch at the end of the day, basking in the sunshine, a mug of tea in his hands, and half an ear waiting for the familiar rumble of a motorcycle pulling into the driveway.

He had lived through two world wars, the destruction of his Homeland, and all the trials that came from friendship with Robert E. Hogan.

He was proud of that. Most of all, he was proud to say that he was at peace.


Thank you.