Fayetteville and Fort Bragg North Carolina Memories

Friday, May 10, Day 18

We were out early this morning, wanting to get a full day to explore Fort Bragg and Fayetteville, NC.

Memories are already starting to flood in as John remembers his time at Fort Bragg.  First, in years 1964-65 as a corporal assigned to the 403rd ASA Special Operations Detachment with the 7th Special Forces Group and the 3rd Special Forces Group and later in1967 (after we were married) as a Lieutenant going through Special Warfare Officer training in preparation for his deployment to Vietnam.  He left Ft. Bragg the first time for Monterey, CA to attend language school (to learn that wonderful romantic language Vietnamese) driving a $100 Corvair with his buddy Cliff Johnson.  Cliff's father Sky Johnson was a famous mechanic and worked at a place called Love Valley for Richard Petty.  Anyway, Cliff and John got this car, that Ralph Nader later deemed the world's most dangerous auto.  But it got them to California, despite some adventures along the way.

We had anticipated having some trouble getting through security but we were finally directed to the right gate, the truck gate, for inspection. The guards seemed interested in knowing more about the camper!  We passed through.

The first corner we turned, John said, "I can't believe it's still there!"  This is the place where he pulled guard duty early on in his career, and caught a guy breaking into the King & Queen drive-in restaurant (military version) across the street.  He ended up with a commendation and the rest of the night off.  It was freezing cold, so it was a lucky break, at least for John. This recognition, he thinks, led to his getting an assignment to Hawaii (where me met) and also into language school.  It's the small things that often separate you from the crowd...

We drove down to the Special Warfare Museum.  The first thing John noticed was that a different statue was in the square.  This one is of Bull Simons, an SF Colonel with the 7th Special Forces, famous for the Son Tay raid on a prison camp in North Vietnam.   Not to mention a rather distinguished career in other theaters of war.

At the Special Warfare Museum, John was looking for a theater that was to be named after the Medic that was on his team in Vietnam, Larry Freedman.  He was truly a gifted medic, and they nicknamed him "Super Jew", a name that stuck.  Freedman was later called back to duty after retiring from 25 years as a Green Beret and Delta operations. He was killed in Somalia at age 51, in a covert mission none of his family or cohorts knew about. He had apparently served on many such missions after his "retirement".

After talking to the woman in charge of the museum who knew Larry well, she explained that the theater had yet to be built due to lack of funds.

John spent some time at this school on more than one occasion.  And, of the course identified below, he remembers his friend John T. failing to show up for an exam because he had slept in.  John spent the test looking for him, and called after the test to find him still in bed.  John T being John T, he talked his way out of it and graduated with the class.

John F. Kennedy, the President who called for the creation of the Green Berets, or Special Forces, is well lionized around Ft. Bragg.  This statue depicts Kennedy and Col. Yarborough as SF is established.

How well I recognize the insignia below!  We both lived with this for quite some time, both while John was in Vietnam and before he went in 1967-68.

 

We went looking for "Bronze Bruce"or just Bruce as it is known among SF soldiers, the original SF statue that stood where Bull Simons now stands.

Turns out, Bruce had been moved to the Army Special Operations Command headquarters memorial plaza, in a stealth operation that occurred in the middle of the night.  The Bronze Bruce is 12 feet high, on a pedestal making the whole thing  22 ft high.   This was the first memorial dedicated to the Vietnam War in the US.  He was chosen because nearly all special operations soldiers killed in Vietnam were green berets.

Money to initiate the creation of this statue was donated by John Wayne, who at the time had just starred in the movie "The Green Berets", and Barry Sadler, who wrote the song, "The Ballad of the Green Berets."  The most remembered refrain from that song is, "100 men will test today, but only three win the Green Beret." Special Forces from around the world contributed the rest of the money needed to erect this statue.  It's pretty special!

We found a place to park our camper and immediately asked a guy where Bruce was.  He said, "I'm going to see him now.  Come with me."  When I started talking about Bruce being to big to fit into a building, he said, "Oh he's not that big."  Turns out, he was talking about a guy he was on his way to meet, William Bruce.  Glad we got that straightened out!

Everyone stopped to talk as we walked around the statue and looked at the plaques on the parade ground.  John was explaining to one guy about his son flying C17's when the man looked up and said, "Here comes one now."  Sure enough, a C17 flew right over our heads.  We later commended Chris for his timing in arranging this flyover!

After we found Bruce, we headed downtown Fayetteville to the Airborne and Special Operations Museum.

John stops here to admire the statue of Iron Mike who stands in front of the museum.  The museum is at 10 Bragg Boulevard, the long stretch of road between the fort and downtown.

Inside the lobby is this full replica of an airborne soldier.  The museum is devoted to all special forces and airborne operations from 1940 to the present.   There are two chutes here, one a WWII era one and a modern square chute.

Of special note to me were these jump boots.  We always had them in the house, and John spent many an hour polishing them to a high shine, using a Zippo lighter to melt the polish.  They were always an
object of pride, as was the rest of the uniform.

There were a lot of SF A team camps in Vietnam. John's camp was outside of Nha Trang, in a place called Sui Dao

John was with the 403rd ASA SOD, Radio Intercept Operations at one point.  He had to jump with this mechanism.  The radio (below) was carried by another soldier.  Looking at the new communications devices, well.... what can you say!

We could have spent a lot more time here.  John will want to come back, I'm sure.