Deborah Cole

Landschule is a very unique place.

I mean, it's just a small town in Germany at first glance.

You've got the sort of Rhineland architecture and the sloping red roofs and these sort of 19th century buildings around.

You have the American fast food joints and you've got a nail salon with an American flag in front of it.

They had a fun fair going when we were there, decorated with Uncle Sam.

It's essentially just kind of one big welcome mat for Americans to feel part of this community.

And they have been for now 81 years.

I spoke to a high school teacher in town who compared it to like a bombshell.

Well, you have to kind of scroll back 81 years, you know, to the end of the Second World War.

So at that time, you know, Germany was completely physically and morally destroyed.

And the American troops led by General Patton marched into this region in March 1945 and have never left.

And it's been a place...

to project US power throughout a very broad region, as well as protecting European allies who are part of NATO.

So the peak was during the Cold War.

At the end of World War II, there were 1.6 million US troops, but that was a short-lived experience.

And then after that, they drew down into the hundreds of thousands in the 1950s, 60s, 70s, up and through the 80s.

you still had more than 250,000 US troops in Germany.

Well, Landstuhl is known mainly for the medical center there, and that is the biggest U.S.

hospital outside the United States.

But it is part of a whole community that is part of the Kaiserslautern military community.