Mid 50s Pics

Heard from Don Cooper who was stationed in Wertheim in the mid 50s:

"One story does come to mind. When the US moved occupation troops out of Austria in (I believe) late 1955, we got a new mechanic who outranked most of our guys and let them know it. When the Bn commander's new German Taunus 4-door came in for maintenance he took it over and right away slid the floor jack under it. Someone told him he had it positioned wrong, but he bulled right ahead and jacked it up. Unfortunately, he had put the jack right under the Colonel's oil pan and it sprung a serious oil leak. No new oil pan was available anywhere for several days.

On the fortunate side, we had an excellent welder in Ron Rising, the pride of International Falls, MN. Ron was able to stem the leak by welding the aluminum pan, which is no small task. I do not know if the Colonel ever found out, but the car had to be called back a week or so later for its new oil pan."

Peden Gym?

Got this note today - if you can help Todd out please drop him a line. Mark


Hello,
I found your web page on Peden Barracks and I hope you can help me. If I have my information correct the Gymnasium was named the "Hartman Gymnasium" it would help me to confirm this and to find out if the placard dedicating the building is still there. I am related to the family of MAJ Hartman who died in Vietnam and I have been trying to find the placard for some time. Any assistance that you or people you know would help a great deal.

Respectfully,

MAJ Todd A. Welsh
Executive Officer, 5th Avn Bn. (P)
Ft. Polk, La 71459
Office: (337) 531-6663
Cell : (337) 772-8165
todd.welsh@conus.army.mil

B 3/35 FA Dining In

Ok so I've been horribly remiss in getting new posts on here. No excuse. Just got an iMac and a new scanner so I'll be able to start adding some of my pics and stories from my days on the hill. These pics are from a pretty memorable event during my tour. This was probably in 1987 if memory serves. Our BC, Jeff Henderson, decided to have a howitzer christening and Battery dining in. I think a lot of us were a tad skeptical at first but it turned out to be a great event. Some of the details I've forgotten but basically we had the dining in and then went up to the track park where we christened each howitzer, with famous battle names all beginning with the letter B. I was the junior officer in the Battery at the time and got tagged as being Mr Vice. I think it was the only time in my active duty tenure where I was officially encouraged to "lubricate" before an event so that I would be able to add the required humor to the role, something I was happy to do. The pics above are two at the track park - a few people I remember are our BC (CPT Jeff Henderson), our 1SG (Willie J Ferguson), SP4 Repka (Top's driver and later mine), SGT Sam Smith, a very talented FDC chief, and SP4 Foster, also a sharp guy who drove for me for a while also. In the two pics at the dining in, one is of LTC Robert M. Dudley, our BN Commander, sampling the boot (with MSG Brennan our Motor Sgt behind him, and part of our BC to his left). The other pic was me in action as Mr. Vice. Lester Simmons is the one in front of me (our Battery XO at the time) and the character with his hand up is SFC McClanahan, who undoubtedy may be the topic of future photos and posts as he was a memorable (and very good) Chief of Smoke. A fair amount of work went into the event but I remember it as a big success, resulting in some real pride of affiliation for guys in the unit.