Taipei Signal Army: Vietnam War Era, Fort Gordon, Augusta, GA

Wednesday, August 5, 2015

Vietnam War Era, Fort Gordon, Augusta, GA

Now that we are up to the Vietnam War Era, I am 22 years old. Whoa! I was certainly 22 back in 1968, but now am staring 70 right in the eye.

That would make Vietnam Era vets in their 50s, 60s, 70s and some 80s. Korean vets are in their 80s mostly and WW2 vets are in their 90s if not the century mark.

Kent Mathieu, who runs the taipeiairstation blog, has talked with me and others about how old our viewership is getting. Fortunately, we have wives and dependents of servicemen who served in Taiwan which gives us a much younger audience.

In the years to come, some folks will blog about Desert Storm, Iraq and Afghanistan. The beat goes on.

This is my second letter from the government ordering me and millions of others to report for active duty in the military.

Previously, we received the letter from President LBJ inviting us to take mental and physical exams in preparation for induction.

It was here in Ft. Jackson, SC that the friendly sergeants smiled as they welcomed us into the Army.

For the next week, we all remembered some things and forgot others because of sleep deprivation.

We took tests, received gear, became inoculated, got a 50 cent haircut, 2 pairs of glasses for us hard-to-see guys, and an introduction to KP. I became a back sink specialist.

Finally, our names were called and the split into two groups for basic training. The first group stayed at Ft. Jackson and the second group piled into buses and took the ride down to Ft. Gordon.

Only seven more weeks to go in basic training with an immediate Christmas leave assigned which cleaned out Fort Gordon of as many of the soldiers and civilians as possible.

Photo from Albert Love Enterprises Inc

The photo above was scanned from my yearbook and pictures gate one, McKenna Gate. Below is stock photo of that same gate 50 years later.

Map from gordon.army.mil

In 1956, Camp Gordon became Fort Gordon, and the major areas of the fort remained pretty much the same by the time the Vietnam Era began around 1960-62.

This map with the colored sections is divided into areas that I am sure of. Although Fort Gordon became a big signal school center, I honestly don't remember the location of the buildings.

The red section is the basic training area, with the 25 meter firing range to the left. Dozens upon dozens of barracks full of basic trainees lived here.

The orange area is the training area for the Officers' Signal Corps.

The purple section is the MP area including what was highlighted during the Korean War. It also includes Brems Barracks, not shown on the map above.

The green circle is the hospital which was built in 1941 and was still being used 30 years later.

To the best of my knowledge, this is how the areas from the 1956 map would look when transposed onto a present-day photo of Fort Gordon.

I need much input from soldiers who were there during this period who know for sure the locations of the buildings where they received their training.

Photo from maxhitek.com

This is a good indication of what was going on at the Fort in 1962. The MP and Signal Schools were established and the 3rd Army basic training area was also up and running.

For certain this was a basic combat training area. The 25 meter range was within walking distance of our Company.

The other ranges and bivouac areas are further west.

Also, west of here was Camp Crocket and the series of popular lakes.

This is our old basic training area. In the yearbook, I jotted down the corner of 15th Street and 6th (Barnes) Avenue.

Today it looks as though there are two settling ponds for some use where two of the four barracks once stood.

If you can follow the thin red line from 15th Street down through the green area and up to the gray area, you will see the footpath that went steeply down, then across an open area. It then climbed up the hill on the other side to the back of the enlisted men's club.

We only knew about this because once we got into basic training for real, several guys went AOL every day and then would show up at the barracks at night to stay warm and get some food from guys who had relieved the Army of excess chow.

This went on until the guys either came back on their own to face the consequences, or else came back with an MP escort to make sure justice would be served.

19th Street was the center of entertainment for the various MOS hopefuls in Signal School who saw movies every night at the theater which is indicated here by red number one.

The yellow number two was the enlisted men's club and had previously been the library for the post.

The blue three was the sports arena which was basically a basketball court.

The orange four building was the chapel where most of us received a forceful suggestion to behave as we were being instructed.

The green area with pine trees on 3 sides of it was an ice cream stand which we all called the Dairy Queen.

It wasn't actually a DQ, but it had great ice cream cones and was a must when ducking duty or just enjoying yourself.

Photo from Albert Love Enterprises Inc

This could have been our company. The two barracks at the top right of the picture are facing two more barracks across the grounds.

The single story building next to the barracks is the combination day room, rifle room, and offices.

The building to the left of the day room was the mess hall where we all got the chance to prepare and serve three meals each day, GI the floors after each meal and prepare for the next day's breakfast.

I have never knowingly eaten real bacon since my back sink days of scrubbing grease from the bacon pans.

To the left of the mess hall was the bedding and linens building where our laundry was picked up and returned.

Every piece of laundry was identified by first letter of your last name and the last four digits of your i.d. number.

Photo from Albert Love Enterprises Inc

Lined up perfectly are tents and equipment in preparation for bivouac which meant spending a week in the field, getting lost in the forests and trying not to get wet or sick.

However, the main purpose of this picture is to show the two huge buildings in the background. The first is the process-in process-out building and the second was a coal burning building for storage of large equipment and machinery.

The entire basic training area was heated by individual furnaces and hot water heaters which burned coal as well. Soot was everywhere including up your nose and in your ears.

Photo from history.army.mil

The highlight of my bivouac week was my time digging a 1x1x1 cathole latrine with the entrenching tool at the right.

Instead of using the bivouac latrines in the middle picture, many did not want to use the ones that had toilet seats screwed into plywood.

In the evening there was plenty of lime to make my place as sanitary as possible. It was time to myself out in the field with nobody missing my presence.

Photo from justiceomercy.com

We covered up a huge pit which had been used as a dump for everything with sand, and marched back from the bivouac area to our barracks.

Basic training was now just about over. Soon we would get our orders for AIT, finish all testing and hand in our M-14 rifles.

To save you the trouble of finding your host among this sea of humanity, he is the one standing next to the red arrow.

I think the group picture was more of a big deal with the Air Force at Lackland AFB and for the Navy at Great Lakes Training.

The hometown newspapers liked these pictures.

This was our yearbook as produced by Albert Love Enterprises, Inc.

All attempts were made to contact this company since they have the rights to the pictures used in this book, but we had no luck finding them.

Since they are receiving credit for the rights to the pictures, there should be no problem because we are not making any money on this publication.

Basic Combat Infantry Training during the Vietnam War is shown partially by clicking HERE.