Ken Stenzel - once a soldier with a famous friend

Four buddies had recently graduated from high school, and over beers one night were discussing their immediate futures. Since none of them really knew what they wanted to do with their lives, and they were all sick of school and not looking forward to college, they decided to volunteer for the draft.

Ken Stenzel in Germany 1958

That was in 1957, and one of those guys was Ken Stenzel. This, then, is the story of how Ken, a kid from the small town of WaKeeney, Kansas, went to Germany as a U.S. soldier, and ended up becoming friends with another soldier, a guy who would become so famous that the world still knows his name.

Ken was born into a German family that had settled in WaKeeney. “I couldn’t speak English until I started grade school,” Ken said. He was in the 4-H program, where he competed in square dance among other things. After high school, his girlfriend went off to college, so Ken became friends with her friend, a girl named Darlene, and soon they began dating. Darlene’s father was German, and while the families lived about 10 miles apart, and Darlene also was in the 4-H program, they didn’t know each other until after high school.

On Feb. 25, 1958, Ken left Darlene behind with the promise to write, and he and his buddies began basic training in Ft. Hood, Texas. “We learned how to march, shine boots, and things like that,” Ken said of those first eight weeks. The second eight weeks brought more intensive training, such as shooting guns. Ken was assigned to the Army Infantry.

Later that year, after boot camp and a short leave, Ken traveled to Savannah, Georgia, where he boarded a ship that would take him on an eight-day journey across the Atlantic Ocean to Germany. Ken said to imagine 50 men crammed together on a long narrow ship, sleeping in bunk beds that were stacked four rows high. Ken had the bottom bunk, not a great spot, he said, considering the water was choppy and some of the guys in the upper bunks had bouts of seasickness.

When they reached the port of Bremerhaven, they were ushered off the ship and straight into the field for training. Life in the Army had begun. 

Some time after that, Ken had a chance encounter with fame. He was in the latrine, he said, when he saw another soldier who he thought he recognized. “I’m Ken Stenzel,” he said to the soldier. The soldier replied, “I’m Elvis Presley.”

It was still early in Presley’s career, and though he was already an international star, he wasn’t really that big of a deal to someone like Ken, who only marginally knew of him. And when Ken wrote to Darlene that he had met Elvis, she wasn’t that impressed either. “I had a scrap of paper with his name on it, and I threw it away,” Darlene said. Nor did she keep the photos of Elvis that Ken had sent. At that time, her attention was really only for Ken.

After that first encounter, Ken said, he saw Elvis in the mess hall, the PX, and elsewhere. Elvis was just one of the soldiers, Ken said, and having beers with him wasn’t anything special. That changed when Ken told Elvis that he spoke German.

“He was dating a girl who was German,” Ken said, “and he asked me to go along with him and listen, and interpret what she was saying.” The girl did speak enough English to get by, but having an interpreter would greatly help with conversation. Ken said he and Elvis rode the train to Frankfurt, where the girl was living in housing Elvis provided. On subsequent visits, they rode in Elvis’s car.

Elvis Presley photo credit
itineraries.nbcnews.com

There wasn’t the onslaught of media like there is today, Ken said, but still, girls always seemed to know when Elvis was around. “It was fun to watch,” Ken said. “Elvis was the most down-to-earth person I could ever talk to. He never acted like he was better than you. And he was a Christian too.” Elvis often picked up the tab though, Ken said, when they had been out on the town.

Ken said that although Elvis never did any concerts for them, he did spend many an evening sitting in a chair in the barracks, singing a little as he strummed his guitar and wrote songs. Since Elvis was in the tank battalion, Ken said, their interaction was more of a social nature. Ken served as Elvis’s interpreter when necessary, and at one point, found himself riding in a car with Elvis and a certain young girl he had met named Priscilla.

Ken Stenzel in front of personnel carrier he drove

After 18 months, Ken returned to the states, and his friendship with Elvis was left behind. Through the years, as Elvis’s fame grew, Ken would see him on the television occasionally. But he became dismayed to see what had happened to the kind young man he had known. “I didn’t even want to watch him,” Ken said. “The media made him too big too fast. They should have just left him alone, let him do his music.”

Ken and Darlene married, and recently celebrated their 54^th wedding anniversary. They have a son and daughter, and six grandchildren. Ken owned and managed a hardware store, and later became an insurance agent. Then came the news on August 16, 1977, that Elvis had died. Ken said his secretary at the time, a huge Elvis fan, had to take several days off work to grieve. Ken grieved too, for the boy he once knew. “I was sad,” Ken said, “it was heartbreaking. I had known him pretty well. I still blame the media for what happened to him.” Ken had heard about the drug and alcohol abuse, but said that when he knew Elvis, all he had ever done was have a beer or two like the rest of them.

Ken & Darlene Stenzel circa 1970s

On a vacation one year, Ken and Darlene toured Graceland, Elvis’s estate. There, in the museum, Ken spotted a field jacket worn by Elvis. He turned to Darlene and told her he knew about that field jacket. “I was visiting Elvis in the barracks one night,” Ken said. “It started pouring down rain and I didn’t have my jacket, so Elvis gave me his field jacket to wear while I walked back.” Ken hung up the jacket to dry, and didn’t think about it again until he was getting ready to head back to the states. “I took the jacket back to him (Elvis),” Ken said, “and to say goodbye. If I’d have kept that jacket, I’d be a rich man today.”

Elvis would have been 80 on January 8 of this year had he lived. For some of the legions of Elvis fans even now, perhaps they will enjoy knowing that their idol was really a decent sort of guy at heart, who was once a friend to another soldier named Ken.