Personal Military Photos and Memories

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One more-- Sp4 Bill Dolan, a talented artist who later contributed artwork to Army magazines during the Vietnam War. He was also a former Marine. He was assigned to our Corporal Missile Ordnance Detachment because of an MOS typo in his orders. He was a Small Arms Repairman but they typed in a number that was an MOS for a Radar Repairman. It took months to get this SNAFU straightened out. SP4 James Gittens in the van doorway. He was an ex-E St Louis cop. This was on a field training exercise (FTX) in 1962 in Germany. We carried M-14s ; plastic covers on barrels to keep out dirt & rain.

 
Amazing how memories come back while on this page. I was luck enough to be in the 11th ACR back in the cold war and stationed in Fulda. Back then, we were not the 11th that plays OPFOR. We were the storm troopers of the Army.

The Cav Platoon was 2 scouts tracks, 2 tow tracks, 4 tanks and the Lt in a M113. Add in any support elements, stinger, medical or maintenance track and it was almost company size. The Lt could not see the tail on the road march from the front. A Troop road march on alerts went on forever.

Talk about alpha males and egos. There was the neverending pressure to be the best and always win. In internal conflicts always stayed within the units. Out in the field, we were the best and everyone knew it.

It took me three months to in process. I kept getting pull out and sent to the field. My first 4 months in country, I went to reforger, tank qualifications, Artep and did a rotation on the border. And that the way it was for 3 years in country.

We played hard as we trained. Besides the trash talking there was pranks and cruel pranks. O the $(;!? we got away with. Some known and others unknown.

I went on to long now. Later more about life under the Command of Ltc Abrams, later general. We called him Son of Tank.
 
One of the most difficult additional duty as a junior officer was to be the SDO and the call from the red cross came in announcing the death is a device member's relative are the passing of a dependent's family member. I got the call about once a year. A junior CPT had explained how to do it. Surprising how easy the notification is. What is difficult is handling the reaction of the news. No one ever tells you about it or what to do. When it happens during the day, the S1 just sends to news through the chain of command and the Plt leader gets the task. I don't know if the other Lt's gave the job to the Plt Sargent or squad leader. I did not. At night as staff duty, who ever got the call had to deliver the news. Time to be human and not the Lt. The only thing worse is telling the family the service member is gone. We lost some to dwi, trying accidents, drugs and suicide. Luckily not any of my men. I know, not the same as the troops deployed but the emotions are the same.

Fast forward a few years. Desert storm just kicked off. That is another story. We had a new guy in our reserve unit. Real world he was a chiropractor. E7, funny and a good guy. Our unit among other things worked as a source of people to fill empty slots in deploying units , both active duty and reserve/national guards. SFC Capps name came up on the computer search to fill a critical short for graves registration. The intel NCO had a secret life. The war was over before he was called up. He was on stand by for months. New respect for the guy and the job.
Don't know why these events of old keeps popping in my brain. Guess it is a function of my age. No kids or grand kids to bore with my ramblings so y'all will have to suffer. Ok, next round on me and smoke them if you have them.
 

"...smoke them if you have them."
Click to expand...
??? "...smoke 'em if you got 'em."
Click to expand...
 
It's 2230 and I am bored. Meetings all day at work. Raining tonight. left work at 1630 got home ai almost 1900. Cannot sleep. So time to play a dum game from work. The ladies always think we have to play before a meeting. I think they just work from home to much. Ok It is 2 truths and a lie. I was exposed to fallout. I have a daughter I have never seen in Belgium
Finally I received a counseling statement in my 201 file because I disobey a general's order and volunteered for active duty for Desert Storm. Good luck guessing.
 
In 1943 my Dad, then- Major C C Albaugh was in Quartermaster, assigned to the Charleston Port of Embarkation. At that time, they were shipping war materiel to the middle East and much of it was Lend-Lease bound for the Soviet Union. He was sent on a mission to study and evaluate the supply situation by accompanying a ship convoy bound for Iran. I was reading a 25 page report that my Dad wrote to higher headquarters about his Army inspection trip to the Middle East and Africa in 1943/1944.

Reading page 18, where he talks about flying a particular air route across Africa, I was absolutely stunned by this sentence:

"It is not used much and only kept open for the purpose of bringing out a small supply of minerals which can be flown out of the Belgian Congo."

Good grief!!! The Belgian Congo is where the US obtained two-thirds of the Uranium used by the Manhattan Project to build the A-bomb!

"A small supply of minerals", indeed! I wonder if Dad was aware of just what those "minerals" actually were. I wish I could ask him. After all, why would "a small supply of minerals" be flown out by AIR? This must have raised questions in his mind even if he was not aware of exactly what was going on.
My admiration and respect for my Dad was always very high but it has also grown over time as I have had a chance to study his papers.

Regarding the Belgian Congo uranium mine: Manhattan Project: Places > Other Places > URANIUM MINES
 
Page 3 from his report. This one mentions airplanes...

4. Abadan is the location of the original Douglas Aircraft Assembly Plant.
That plant was taken over by the Army some time ago. In some cases heavy lifts
may also be removed at the wharf at Abadan before the vessel proceeds on up the
river to Khorramshahr. The Ports of Basra, Buehire, Bandar, Shapur, and Abadan
are used to discharge Lend-Lease cargo or by the British for their purposes. It
is again emphasized that Khorramshahr, as far as Charleston Port of Embarkation
is concerned, is the chief port of discharge in the Persian Gulf Area.
*
*
5.
*
c. Medicinal whiskey has been received showing the brand or other distinguishing marks which made it very obvious as to the contents. The contents should be coded and the boxes strongly banded or otherwise protected so as to prevent pilferage.

6. Upon completion of the discharging of cargo, I visited the airplane assembly plant at Abadan, where the War Department has taken over the operation of the assembly plant from Douglas Aircraft Company. A few of the original Douglas employees are still there in a supervisory capacity, but practically all of the assembly work is done by American soldiers with native laborers as assistants. This assembly plant is concentrating on P-40 fighter aircraft and a few P-39s. Planes are assembled and tested here and are picked up by Russian pilots and flown from this point directly into Russia. Abadan is also the final stop on the ferry route from U.S. to Russia. Most of the planes being flown in are A~20 bombers and the Russian pilots take over at this point the same as they do on the fighters, The camp surrounding the assembly plant is older than most of the other American installations in this area and consequently somewhat better. A station hospital is located at this point.

7. One of the largest oil refineries in the world is located at Abadan and is the main industry of that entire area, This is operated b ythe Anglo~Iranian Oil Company and the refinery is fed by pipe lines extending out across the desert in most all directions. A large number of Europeans, especially Englishmen, make up the population of Abadan,

8. After completing my investigation of the installations in this vicinity, I flew to Teheran, capitol of Iran,and the location of the Headquarters of the ...
 
Interesting! And thanks for sharing.

Just a very little minor correction...

Bandar -e Shapur, or as it is known today, Bandar -e Imam Khomeini, is just one of many "Bandar" - Port - cities along the coast. However, the word "Bandar", generally refers to Bandar Abbas, in Hormozgan province.
 
Fall, 1961- the Fulda Gap, the most dangerous place in the world. Most people have never heard of this place. Fulda was a tiny town in Germany, located on the border of West Germany and East Germany, in a gap through the Vogelsberg Mountains. This flat plain would have been the invasion route of Soviet armored forces as their tanks rolled into West Germany and across Western Europe. The Berlin Wall had been hastily erected around West Berlin so that refugees fleeing Communist East Germany and other Soviet satellite countries would be stopped. Tension was high in Berlin, especially- at one point, Soviet and American tanks faced each other at Checkpoint Charlie, ready to fire. Fortunately, JFK's senior advisor, Gen Lucius Clay, backed down the Soviets and their tanks withdrew.
With US-Soviet tension now at a level not seen since the Berlin Airlift (1948), it was clear that US forces in Europe, and Germany in particular, needed to be brought up to the highest level of readiness. I and my fellow instructor David Brummett at OGMS (Ordnance Guided Missile School), were whisked off to Babenhausen to fill two vacancies in the 157th Ordnance Detachment. This was a Direct Support Detachment composed of 20 or so men who were assigned to support a much larger Corporal Type IIB guided missile artillery battalion. Wherever they went, we went. If something in the missile guidance system was not working, we fixed it.
"What does this have to do with the Fulda Gap?" you might wonder. This battalion had, as it's primary fire mission, the defense of the Fulda Gap. Given an Alert phone call (and proper code confirmation), we all scrambled to assemble the entire unit out into the German woods. Shortly thereafter we would be given map coordinates to move into a firing position and prepare a missile for launch into the Soviet armor in the Fulda Gap.
The Corporal Type IIB was the most advanced of its type at that time- 44 ft 10in long, carrying a nuclear warhead. The ground guidance electronics system that directed it to its target was complex. This was before transistors came to replace the vacuum tubes that were the foundation of Corporal.
We all now know that the Soviets did not attempt an invasion of Western Europe through the Fulda Gap or anywhere else but in those early days of 1961 to 1963 we were on the razor edge of war. As I look back on that time long ago, I am proud of the part that I and my men played in keeping the peace there.
 
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