U.S. Army - Celebrating 250 Years of Service

U.S. Army | 1775 to 2025

CE L E B R A TI N G years of Service

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INSIDE The ARMY TURNS 250 America’s Army at 250..................................................... 6 Army’s Origins.................................................................10 Army Birthday celebrations..........................................14 Army in Central Texas....................................................18 Camp Hood: 1940s.............................................................22 Fort Hood: 1950s................................................................28 Fort Hood: 1960s and 1970s..............................................32 Fort Hood: 1980s................................................................46 Fort Hood: 1990s................................................................48 Fort Hood: 2000s................................................................56 Fort Hood: 2010s................................................................60 Name Change....................................................................66 Fort Cavazos today...........................................................70

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America's Army at 250

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hroughout the year, we have federal, state, and unofficial holidays that are important dates to remember and to celebrate — from your child’s birthday to the Fourth of July. Every so often there are milestone years that deserve to be commemorated, and this year marks the 250th anniversary of the start of the American War for Independence and also the birth of the United States Army, which traces its creation to June 14, 1775, when the Second Continental Congress authorized the creation of the Continental Army, which is technically before the official creation of the United States of America.

On the morning of April 19, 1775, the minutemen company of the local patriot militia of about 70 men led by Capt. John Parker assembled on the commons of Lexington, Massachusetts, to meet the British redcoats, who had come to seize or destroy the gunpowder and arms the rebels had amassed in the nearby town of Concord. After a brief exchange TIMOTHY of fire. Parker’s minutemen quickly C. HEMMIS dispersed, and the British regulars had killed seven patriots and wounded more. The Redcoats continued onto Concord. The British arrived at 8 a.m. to finish their search and destroy mission for illegal arms, and they were met with more local patriot militias at the Old North Bridge that resulted in the “shot heard around the world,” sparking the eight-year war for independence.

Militias have been a part of American military tradition since the 17th century and their effectiveness and success on the battlefields have been mythologized.

Militias were seen as local organizations and not part of the national institution. However, the actions at Lexington and Concord pushed The Second Continental Congress to authorize the raising of ten companies of riflemen, and these units would become the first unified national army — the Continental Army. These solders were known as Continentals and their terms of enlistment would end after a year. Each colony, and later each state, would be responsible to raise and equip these units. Congress worried that this new organization would become regionalized and dominated by New England.

So, many Congressional delegates were convinced that this new army needed to be led by a Virginian to make it truly a united colonial body. Subsequently, on June 15, 1775, Congress selected Virginian George Washington to lead this new Continental Army as its general and commander in chief.

Continued

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Gen. Washington assumed control over the rag-tag forces outside Boston in July 1775. The patriot forces were in rough shape, but Washington worked to shape and mold the new fighting force as he saw fit over the next few years. In the winter of 1777-78, the Continental Army entered their winter quarters at Valley Forge outside of British occupied Philadelphia and received training from Washington and the Prussian Baron Friedrich von Steuben. The training emphasized drill and warfighting practices, and it molded it into a professional army.

Many of these drill and lessons that Steuben installed remain part of the Army training today in the form of Drill and Ceremony regulations and the manuals of the Noncommissioned Officers.

After Valley Forge, the freshly trained Continental Army was eager to prove itself on the battlefield as a disciplined force. They did just that at the Battle of Monmouth on June 28, 1778. Although the battle itself was a tactical draw, it proved that Continental Army could operate as a professional army against superior force. Over the course of the war, the Continental Army would have plenty of failures, but its successes ultimately sustained the nation and the American Revolution.

After the American and French victory at Yorktown on Oct. 19, 1781, and later with the Peace of Paris in 1783, the American War for Independence concluded, and the majority of the Continental Army was disbanded in 1783 except for a small force at West Point. However, the new Congress of the Confederation under the Articles of Confederation (the first real national government of the United States of America), resolved to form a new United States Army on June 4, 1784, from the remaining regiment that was at West Point and other frontier outposts.

However, the army remained tiny compared to modern standards. In the 1790s, General Anthony Wayne created the Legion of the United States to combat Native Americans in the Old Northwest Territory. The Legion of the United States was the first combined arms organization of the army, but after their victory against

Stoney and Theresa Williamson and their children, Justin, 4, and Jaime, 6, spend time together in their home on Fort Hood, December 1992. Stoney was a specialist with the 13th Corps Support Command, scheduled to deploy with other members of the 13th COSCOM to help in relief efforts in Somalia. | HERALD FILE PHOTO

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Soldiers in the 1st Cavalry Division’s Horse Detachment on a parade field at Fort Hood. | U.S. ARMY FILE PHOTO

the western Native Americans at Fallen Timbers in 1794, Congress reduced the standing army once again.

Repeatedly the size of the American Army would ebb and flow over the next few decades as it would grow during the War of 1812 and then shrink after the conflict.

Throughout the nineteenth century, the Army would be one of the constant federal institutions as it remains today. Although size of the Army was drastically different compared to modern times however, the mission remained the same — national security. In 1849, after the Mexican American War, the Army established a string of forts through central Texas to defend settlers against Native American raids and one of those was Fort Gates (modern day Gatesville). Although Fort Gates was abandoned in 1852, it is one of the earliest Army presences in the region. Fort Gates, along with other posts such as Fort Croghan in present-day Burnet, Fort Martin Scott in Fredericksburg were in the Hill Country. Many of these forts were abandoned as the frontier line moved westward and they created new posts.

The Civil War interrupted the United States Army’s presence in Central Texas, but after the war the Army returned in the late 1860s. As the threats from Native Americans declined, the Army was not a sizable presence in Central Texas. However, in 1892, Camp Mabry in Austin was created to train and house the Texas Volunteer Guard (now the Texas National Guard) units. During the First World War, Camp Mabry and Camp MacArthur (Waco) were training facilities for National Guard Units that were being mobilized for the war. Although Camp Mabry still exists today, Camp MacArthur was closed in 1919.

During the Second World War, the Army constructed Camp Hood in Killeen, which would become one of the largest forts in the United States Army and become the home of the III Armored Corps and First Army Division West and the headquarters of several famous units such as the 1st Cavalry Division and the 3rd Cavalry Regiment by the 21st century.

As the nation commemorates the semiquincentennial of American Revolution, let’s not forget the contributions of the Army and its soldiers who have sacrificed so much for this great nation over the past 250 years.

TIMOTHY C. HEMMIS is an associate professor at Texas A&M University-Central Texas.

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Army origins

Life as a continental soldier Editor’s Note: The following is from the website of the U.S. Army Center for Military History. Read more about the American War for Independence at https://history. army.mil/Revwar250.

U.S. ARMY CENTER FOR MILITARY HISTORY

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ontinental soldiers came from many different backgrounds and included Black people and Native Americans. By 1780, persons of color made up as much as 10 to 15 percent of the Continental Army.

Some estimates range as high as 30 percent.

The average age of the Continental soldier was 22, although the general range fluctuated from ages 15 to 70s.

The first oath of enlistment for the Continental Army adopted on 14 June 1775 ran as follows: “I ___ have, this day, voluntarily enlisted myself, as a soldier, in the American Continental Army, for one year, unless sooner discharged: and I do bind myself to conform, in all instances, to such rules and regulations, as are, or shall be, established by the government of said Army.”

On the march, the Continental soldier carried 45 to 60 pounds of gear, including musket, bayonet, knapsack, haversack, ammunition, blanket, and other missioncritical items.

Continental Army uniforms varied by state and branch of service. In 1779, the Continental Congress established the blue uniform coat as the color for the Army, but shortages of dye meant that many regiments wore brown or green coats until the end of the war.

The Continental Army often employed women to provide important services such as nursing, laboring, laundering, and other logistics functions.

To fill vacancies in the Continental Army, Congress assigned yearly quotas to each state, which offered recruiting inducements such as bounties and land grants.

States that were unable to fill positions with volunteers resorted to drafts from the state militia.

In 1778, Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben designed the first drill regulation for the Continental Army. Known as the “Blue Book,” it synthesized European and British tactical doctrine and shaped the Continental Army into a professional fighting force.

The Continental Army provided soldiers with daily rations of meat, bread, vegetables, sugar or molasses, and beer or cider, with weekly allowances of candles and soap.

However, shortages were common, and most soldiers received well below the authorized ration.

Most Continental soldiers carried the British Short Land Service Musket (“Brown Bess”), or a locally made copy or the French Infantry Musket (“Charleville” muskets), both of which ranged between .80- to .69-caliber and weighed just over 9 pounds (12 with the addition of a bayonet). Infantry soldiers were expected to fire three rounds per minute.

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The United States Army Old Guard fife and drum corps marches in an Independence Day parade in Washington, D.C., in 1946. The instruments have been used since the Army’s founding. | U.S. ARMY FILE PHOTO

WEAPONS

The weapons of this period consisted of firelocks for infantry; pistols, firelocks, and sabers for mounted troops; and cannons for artillery.

Firelocks included flintlock muskets, carbines, fusils, rifles, and a few other, less common arms. The musket, by far the most common arm, was loaded using a paper cartridge containing a 1-ounce ball and black powder rammed down the barrel.

A musket required 13 steps to load and fire. A good soldier could manage about three shots per minute and reliably hit a target within 100 yards. Rifles were accurate out to about 300 yards but took up to a minute to load.

The spent black powder created enough white smoke to obscure a battlefield in a matter of minutes.

Armies often closed to less than 50 yards before firing and used the bayonet to decide the outcome of the battle.

Mounted troops, called dragoons or light horse, scouted for the army, delivered messages, and sometimes closed in with sabers to follow up a bayonet charge. Artillery softened up the enemy line or fortifications or knocked out enemy cannons.

All of these weapons required sophisticated tactics to maneuver the lines of highly disciplined troops into range to use their weapons effectively. Infantry soldiers of all ranks had to learn and understand the complex movements explained in works such as British army Lt. Col. Humphrey Bland’s Treatise of Military Discipline; The Manual Exercise, as Ordered by His Majesty in Continued

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1764; and later General Friedrich Wilhelm von Steuben’s Regulations for the Order and Discipline of the Troops of the United States, or the Blue Book.

By maintaining tightly ordered ranks, soldiers could concentrate their fire or bayonets to maximum effect.

Mastery of these intricate maneuvers gave the Army of the United States the tactical proficiency to prevail on the battlefields of the Revolutionary War.

TACTICS

The Continental Army waged war using linear tactics.

It fought in closely formed lines or ranks of soldiers, usually two but sometimes three deep. The soldier in the front rank and the soldier in the rank behind him formed a file. Soldiers typically stood between 18 inches and 4 or 5 feet apart, depending on the type of combat.

If facing enemy infantry or mounted troops in an open field, they might form at closer order to better concentrate their fire. If fighting in woods or if facing artillery, they might open their files — increasing the distance between soldiers — in order to get around trees and bushes or to make themselves less of a target. Commanders sometimes ordered independent fire by files, with each pair of soldiers shooting in turn. Light infantry troops often practiced this tactic.

When firing as part of a platoon or battalion, officers gave the command to march, load and fire. To communicate information over the noise of the battle, drummers used different beats that conveyed commands

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and enabled soldiers to fire in near-perfect unison. Any missed step or unheard command could put soldiers in the wrong place and open them up to severe injury or death. Commanders therefore demanded strict discipline to execute linear tactics. Corporals ensured that privates knew and understood their drill and kept order within the ranks. Sergeants kept the ranks and files together on the battlefield, protected the officers, and helped them to evacuate the wounded and resupply ammunition.

Both corporals and sergeants wore an epaulette or strip of cloth on their right shoulder to show rank. Those of the corporals were green, those of the sergeants were red. After 1779, the epaulettes were white cloth, one for corporals, and two for sergeants. Sergeants usually carried swords in addition to muskets, and early in the war sometimes carried a polearm known as a halberd.

Drummers, who also played fifes, often wore uniforms of opposite colors so their officers could find them in the heat of battle. Officers wore uniforms in the color of their regiments, with a sword, sash, and epaulettes to denote rank, or a long polearm called a spontoon. Immediate recognition was critical in the heat of battle, and armies of the day often wore brightly colored uniforms, if they were available, to distinguish friend from foe.

At other times, soldiers wore simple linen hunting shirts. Few thought about the need for camouflage, as the capabilities of the weapons that soldiers carried meant that most battles were fought in the open at relatively close range.

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Army birthday

Fort Cavazos prepares for parade in D.C.

BY BRENT JOHNSON KILLEEN DAILY HERALD

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oldiers detailed to the Fort Cavazos Rail Operations Center loaded dozens of tanks, fighting vehicles and support trucks onto a train bound for the nation’s capital in late May, as the III Armored Corps was tasked with providing armored vehicles for a massive military parade there in June.

Ground guides stood on each of the heavy-duty rail cars, waving the column of hefty M1A2 Abrams tanks — and another line of smaller M2 Bradley fighting vehicles on an adjacent train — to pull forward. The flat bed carriages are capable of holding more than 150 tons of equipment at a time, or two of the 70-ton Abrams.

The train departed June 2, taking about a week to reach its destination, a staging area outside of the capital district, as thousands of U.S. Army soldiers prepare to celebrate the service’s 250th birthday on June 14. The grand display of combat power also coincides with President Donald Trump’s birthday. Trump will turn 79.

Cost estimates for the event, which will also include concerts, fireworks and fitness competitions on the National Mall, range from $25 million to $45 million, the Associated Press reported last week.

The parade will feature hundreds of vehicles and aircraft, but the bulk of the ground combat element will come from Fort Cavazos in the form of 28 M1 tanks, 28 Bradley Infantry Fighting Vehicles, 28 Stryker armored vehicles, six M109A7 Paladin self-propelled howitzers, according to III Armored Corps spokesman Col. Kamil Sztalkoper. Tow trucks and fully-fueled fuel tankers will travel to Washington in a supporting role.

“This is a once in a lifetime opportunity just to, kind of, be a part of the rich history and tradition which is the United States Army,” Sztalkoper told reporters at the railhead, adding that Fort Cavazos would provide about half of the 150 vehicles. “And that rich history and tradition will be on display during the course of approximately a 90-minute parade on Constitution Avenue.”

To accommodate the behemoth Abrams tanks, metal plates will be placed on spots they are scheduled to make turns so that their tracks don’t tear up the asphalt of Washington’s streets.

More than 6,600 Army troops — about a brigade’s worth — will march in the parade, out of which several hundred Fort Cavazos soldiers will take part either on Continued

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Houston group plans celebration STAFF REPORT

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OUSTON — Celebrate the 250th Birthday Celebration of the United States Army, the nations’ oldest military branch, at the Omni Houston Hotel on Saturday, June 14. The inaugural Army Gala, presented by HTX Army Celebration, will commence at 6 p.m. with a reception honoring the contributions of U.S. Army veterans and active military service members. The public is invited to attend honoring the Army’s legacy and support for their service to our country.

The HTX Army Celebration is a nonprofit organization dedicated to honoring the unparalleled service, sacrifice, and contributions of all United States Army veterans and active military serving in the Army fostering unity, education, and support for these extraordinary individuals and their families through community events, programs, and advocacy initiatives.

Houston was selected as the location for the inaugural event for its vibrant and diverse military community that includes active-duty service members and their families as well as veterans. As a city with a rich history of supporting the military, Houston provides

the perfect backdrop for honoring and celebrating the contributions of those who have served in the United States Army. By focusing efforts in the Houston area, it will set the tone for community support and engagement to inspire similar initiatives across the country.

Get involved — there are many opportunities to sponsor the gala, volunteer or make a donation. These programs give back to veterans, their families, and continue to create meaningful events that show our support for those that defend our freedoms. Tickets are available at www.HTXArmyCelebration.org Victor Ramirez, HTX Army Celebration President, invites the community to join in the rich history of the Army. “The United States Army is celebrating the founding of our nation and its 250th birthday,” Ramirez said. “More than a year before the Declaration of Independence, the Second Continental Congress pass a resolution and created the National Army, thus on June 14, 1775, the U.S. Army was born ... The Army has had an essential role in both the founding and the development of the United States as an independent nation. Winning the Revolutionary War set America on a path toward greatness.”

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Soldiers stage tanks and engineer vehicles to be loaded onto a train on May 21. The train’s destination is Washington, D.C., where several hundred Fort Cavazos troops will participate in a U.S. Army birthday parade on June 14. | HERALD PHOTO BY BRENT JOHNSON

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foot or in their vehicles. Soldiers from each of the Army’s active divisions will form columns representing the uniforms of America’s previous conflicts, from the American War of Independence to the present day.

More than 50 military aircraft are expected to join in, including the P-51 Mustang fighter and B-25 Mitchell bomber of World War II and generations of Army helicopters from the Vietnam War era onwards, according to an AP report in May. The report explained that units from more recent conflicts will receive flyovers from aircraft of the same period as they pass by Trump.

The procession along Constitution avenue will end with a skydiving demonstration by the Army Black Knights parachutist team, whose members will give their president an American flag.

Locally, Fort Cavazos officials are planning an Army Birthday Ball on June 19 at the Killeen Civic and Conference Center.

THE ASSOCIATED PRESS contributed to this report.

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Camp hood to Fort Cavazos

The Army has been an integral part of Central Texas since 1942

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f you ask anyone who has heard of Killeen what they know about it, they’ll probably tell you it’s an Army base town. And, while the once-humble Central Texas settlement did exist before the Army moved in, it now owes much of its identity to the enduring presence of American soldiers.

Few are left to tell the tale of a quiet farming town, population 1,268 in 1940, that stood here before Army Corps of Engineers personnel arrived two years later to scope out the surrounding ranchlands. Over the course of World War II, the new Tank Destroyer Replacement Training Center at Camp Hood, would grow to dwarf Killeen in number of residents, and by 1950 the size of the city itself would increase by 455% to more than 7,000.

BRENT The massive Army post now known JOHNSON as Fort Cavazos owes its existence to the Panzer tank of Nazi Germany — an armored juggernaut that allowed Adolf Hitler’s Wehrmacht to take over Poland and much of Western Europe with its overwhelming “Blitzkrieg” offensives in 1939 and 1940.

By 1941, senior leaders of the U.S. Army were working to modernize the service to defeat the Nazis in battle and develop a new doctrine to counter the mighty Panzer.

The result was the “tank destroyer” battalion, a heavilyarmed team that could maneuver into place and direct devastating firepower at approaching German columns.

Army leaders tested their new tank destroyer doctrine in a series of large-scale maneuvers across Louisiana and the Carolinas in 1941, and by the end of the year the Army was looking for a better area than its Fort Meade, Maryland location to train its new tank destroyer units.

They identified 160,000 acres of rural land in Bell and Coryell counties, just northwest of Killeen, as a suitable spot to train tank destroyer crews.

Then, on Jan. 14, 1942, the headline came in the Temple Daily Telegram: “Army formally orders new camp at Killeen,” citing information from Telegram publisher and Temple Chamber of Commerce defense committee chair Frank Mayborn.

The Killeen Herald and Messenger — as the Daily Herald was known at the time — confirmed with word Continued

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Command Sgt. Maj. Scott Schroeder, left, and Lt. Gen. Mark Milley, III Corps and Fort Hood commander, case the colors April 4, 2013, at III Corps. The ceremony signified the beginning of the unit’s year-long deployment to Afghanistan. BELOW: John Bell Hood for whom the post was originally named. | HERALD FILE PHOTOS

from Rep. W.R. Poage and Sen. Tom Connally that the camp would be built into a permanent Army post.

Government agents swiftly began buying up land or taking it through eminent domain.

Partially to quell protests from the communities swallowed up by the camp, the War Department announced in February that it would be named in honor of John Bell Hood, a Confederate Army general who served in the American Civil War. Known as the “Fighting General” for his aggressive tactics, Hood had served in Texas as a U.S. Army officer prior to his defection to the cause of slavery.

Training at the camp began before it even had buildings. Soldiers were brought down to Texas and lived in the field for the first few months, according to the first edition of the Hood Panther, the camp’s newspaper, in December 1942.

“Battalions were brought in to the Unit Training Center and lived in the field, in tents, under theater of operations conditions, drawing equipment and food from rail and truck heads, purifying creek water,” wrote the editors of the Panther, so named after the black panther symbol of tank destroyer units. .

According to the Texas Historical Association, the camp’s population grew to as many as 100,000 soldiers during the war, and prisoner-of-war camps on post held 4,000 German prisoners captured in battle. In 1943,

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infantry and field artillery units began to train on its By the time Camp Hood was dubbed Fort Hood in 1950, the installation had long outgrown its original purpose into a base for multiple armored divisions plus facilities for basic and advanced soldier training. Units have deployed from the post to every major American conflict to date, as well as to disaster relief missions and operations at the borders. In 2023, the post was re-named again to Fort Cavazos in honor of the late post commander Lt. Gen. Richard Cavazos. Cavazos was a respected leader both in combat and in peacetime, receiving both the highest and second-highest decorations for battlefield heroism — the Medal of Honor and the Distinguished Service Cross — for his actions in the Korea and Vietnam conflicts.

Herald reporters have covered the growth and development of the Army presence in Central Texas for all of the 83 years since those first battalions first arrived to learn the art of tank killing. In this section, readers will find stories of deployments, homecomings and reports from forward-deployed units — all seen from the eyes of news professionals over the years.

From the Killeen Daily Herald, happy 250th birthday to the Army.

BRENT JOHNSON is the military editor of the Killeen Daily Herald.

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Camp hood: 1940s

News for the troops

BY BRENT JOHNSON KILLEEN DAILY HERALD

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hile the Telegram and Herald were among the first news organizations to report the existence of a new Army installation near Killeen in early 1942, the first news publication for soldiers — and by soldiers — was printed in December of the same year, while the camp was still largely under construction.

“This new paper will do much to add to the pride which every enlisted man here should have with the Tank Destroyer program,” Maj. Gen. Andrew Davis Bruce, the post’s first commander, was quoted as saying in Vol. 1, No. 1 of the Hood Panther, Dec. 10, 1942. “And its publication is an important step in further development of the center which has been remarkable these past few months.”

The Hood Panther, named for the black panther insignia of the Tank Destroyer battalions, was published

Taking a cue from the Office of War Information poster “If you talk too much, this man may die,” Pvt. Ivan A. Smith, editor of the Camp Hood Panther, originated this novel method of reminding his fellow soldiers to practice discretion. | COURTESY OF THE LIBRARY OF CONGRESS

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twice a month and edited by Pvts. Ivan Smith and Joseph Hart. It chronicled the evolution of the sprawling military reservation, and included results of sports competitions, event news, editorials and cartoons — all centered on the life of the American soldier.

Curious news briefs from the perspective of young troops on leave padded the Panther’s pages, perhaps fabricated for laughs. One concise story told the tale of a Bert Coulson, who accidentally hit a deer with his car.

“It looked at him pleadingly,” reported the anonymous Panther writer. “He decided its leg was broken, so he ran it over again trying to kill it. When he got out of his car the deer attacked. He defended himself with a crowbar.

The deer scrammed into the woods.”

Later post newspapers took on names like Hood News, Under the Hood and Hell on Wheels, the latter being published by the 2nd Armored Division.

By 1973, the Army had a professional newspaper known as the Fort Hood Sentinel, which is still distributed weekly by Army Public Affairs as the Fort Cavazos Sentinel. In 2004, the Sentinel was joined by the Fort Hood Herald, a weekly independent publication now called the Fort Cavazos Herald.

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Camp hood: 1940s

Holding firm

Jackie Robinson stood against racism

BY PATRICIA BENOIT FME NEWS SERVICE ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON APRIL 11, 2016

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efore Rosa Parks in Alabama, there was Jackie Robinson in Bell County. Standing up. Holding firm. Staying true to what was right.

Before he broke color barriers in Major League Baseball, Robinson stood up against racism at Camp Hood during World War II. As a result, the Army attempted to court-martial him.

“Jackie Robinson,” Martin Luther King Jr. said, “was a sit-inner before sit-ins, a freedom rider before freedom rides.”

The life of Jackie Robinson is the subject of a two-part, four-hour PBS documentary directed by Ken Burns, Sarah Burns and David McMahon.

“When he (made his Major League debut) on April 15, 1947, there had been a lot of civil rights going on in the 20th century up to that point,” Ken Burns told Newsweek magazine earlier this year. “But at that moment, Dr. King is still a junior at Morehouse College. Harry Truman hasn’t integrated the military yet. Brown v. Board of Education hasn’t happened. There are not organized sitins at lunch counters, although as a teenager Jackie had done that. Rosa Parks is a decade away from refusing to give up a seat on a Montgomery, Ala., bus — but Jackie did that in 1944. That’s what makes him so seminal.”

Burns said the series tells the story of an American icon whose life-long battle for first-class citizenship for all blacks transcends even his remarkable athletic achievements. A stalwart advocate for integration and equal access, Robinson used his immense fame to speak out against the discrimination he saw on and off the field, angering fans, the press and even teammates who had once celebrated him for “turning the other cheek.”

Baseball historians agree, and that’s why Burns focused on Robinson for his next project. Robinson’s Camp Hood experience in 1944 helped steel him for the flying bats and bean balls of the major leagues. Robinson’s court-martial got scant attention in mainstream press at the time, perhaps because the incident happened right after the D-Day invasion. Or, perhaps the court-martial of a black soldier didn’t seem important.

“How he handled the military encounter was actually truer to the way the future Dodger approached life’s challenges than was understood to be the case during his first years within organized baseball,” wrote John Vernon, former history professor at Tuskegee Institute who documented the trial for the National Archives.

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Lt. Jackie Robinson served at Camp Hood, was court-martialed and eventually made an impact on the integration of troops as well as Major League Baseball. His story foreshadows Rosa Parks who, a decade later, refused to move to the back of the bus. | COURTESY OF THE NATIONAL ARCHIVES

At the onset of World War II, the NAACP lobbied the government to commission more black officers. However, the officer ranks remained white, while black troops were truck drivers and stevedores. Drafted soon after Pearl Harbor, Robinson first went to Fort Riley, Kan., where he applied for Officer’s Candidate School. He was turned down despite having the qualifications: four years of college and an outstanding record.

TRANSFER TO CAMP HOOD

Using his connections, he was commissioned as a second lieutenant in early 1943. Soon after, he was transferred to Camp Hood and a black tank unit, the 761st Tank Battalion. At the time, Camp Hood and Killeen had a sordid reputation as racist with strict segregation for troops. Camp Hood’s segregation was considered “one of the worst situations in the whole Army,” remarked one observer of the court-martial. “There is hostility between (military police and black personnel) and segregation on interstate buses operating on the post, and segregation in the post facilities and theaters.”

Robinson soldiered on despite these difficulties and was recommended by his commanding officer for a post as an overseas morale officer. That meant that Robinson had to go to McCloskey Army Hospital in Temple, 30 miles away, Continued

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for a medical checkup. In July 1944, Robinson boarded a bus to McCloskey. On his return trip, he sat next to the wife of a fellow officer, and the two began chatting.

“Hey you, sitting beside that woman,” the bus driver yelled. “Get to the back of the bus.”

Robinson ignored him. The Army had desegregated its buses just a month earlier, and Robinson knew it.

The driver again ordered Robinson to the back of the bus. “Listen you,” he shouted. “I said get to the back of the bus where colored people belong.”

“Now you listen to me,” Robinson replied. “You just drive the bus, and I’ll sit where I please.”

At the last stop, the driver fetched an MP at the post gate. When MPs arrived, a crowd of indignant whites had formed. Two MPs escorted Robinson to see a captain, where the two exchanged heated words. The captain called him “n——-” and the argument escalated.

Robinson threatened “to break in two” anyone, whatever the rank or status, who used that word.

Confined to quarters at McCloskey Hospital in Temple, Robinson was charged with insubordination, subject to a general court-martial. The justification given was that he had committed a number of serious transgressions — including the show of disrespect toward a superior officer and failure to obey a direct command. Thirteen depositions attested to Robinson’s “gross misbehavior.”

Believing these charges to be contrived and racially motivated, Robinson and others contacted the NAACP and sought publicity through the Negro press. Army

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officials were unhappy when two of the most zealous black publications printed editorials. An Army directive dated two days after the Robinson bus flap emerged as the most widely explicit in clarifying that no discrimination on the basis of race was allowed in regard to use of recreational facilities, theaters and transportation.

The trial lasted a little more than four hours. His Army-appointed defense attorney — a white captain from Texas — skillfully brought out inconsistencies in prosecution witnesses’ accounts, including a denial by one prosecution witness that he had called Robinson the “n” word when another MP acknowledged he had indeed done so. Robinson was acquitted.

RED BALL EXPRESS

Soon after he was transferred to Fort Breckenridge, Ky., where he requested and was granted a discharge.

While Robinson fought his battles in Central Texas, blacks were making history abroad. The Red Ball Express, a truck unit operated almost exclusively by blacks, was essential in the rapid advance of Allied forces across France shortly after D-Day. During the Battle of the Bulge in late 1944, Gen. Dwight D. Eisenhower for the first time allowed black soldiers to fight with white units.

This was the first step toward a desegregated military.

Vernon analyzed the impact of the incident on the military. “In the face of determined, implacable foes such as Robinson and other black veterans, the enemy — ethnic bigotry — was going to have to give ground.”

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FORT hood: 1950s

Memories of Elvis Entertainer excited fans during his time stationed at Fort hood in 1958 FME NEWS SERVICE

M

arch 2025 marked the 67th anniversary of a event that caused tumult and wild screams in Bell County.

No, not a natural disaster; rather, it was a commotion built on “Heartbreak Hotels” and “Hound Dogs.”

On March 24, 1958, Elvis Presley, the so-called “King of Rock ’n’ Roll,” was inducted into the Army and dispatched soon after to Fort Hood as a lowly buck private.

In his short lifetime, he created pandemonium from teeny-boppers and groans from their parents. His two-year stint in the military was a transformative time for the young rocker. So yes, Elvis was here — but not where most folks thought he was.

For all the stories floating around the county about “Elvis was here” or “Elvis ate here,” there are hundreds more accounts of where Elvis wasn’t. Elvis ghosted Bell County more than he visited. Presley first beamed into Bell County’s living rooms in 1954 via clear-channel radio broadcasts on Shreveport-based “Louisiana Hayride” program. Listeners couldn’t see him, but, by golly, they could hear his resonant baritone, and they liked what they heard. Once accepted as a member of “Hayride” regulars, Presley went on tour with other country stars, booked frequently throughout Texas.

Within a year, 1955, he performed in 15 states, primarily in the South, making 225 appearances, excluding “Louisiana Hayride” shows. Among his “Hayride” stops was a nearly four-hour live broadcast from Waco’s Heart O’Texas Coliseum along with other headliners.

One newspaper reported that he “caused more mass hysteria (in Waco) than the 1953 tornado” — a surprise since the city was regarded as “the squarest town in America.” Carpools filled with anxious teens rolled northward from Bell County to Waco for his show.

Elvis returned to Waco’s Coliseum two times more the next year. Other performers were on the playbill, but the teeny boppers saved their passionate squeals for Elvis.

Massive groans and screams overwhelmed the musicians on stage. Tickets were $1.50 advance; $2 at the door.

That performance prompted the first of what would be dozens of non-Elvis sightings.

The Temple Daily Telegram in October 1956 reported, “Wild-eyed and almost hysterical teenage rock n’ roll fans were all shook up after a rumor started that singer Elvis Presley was a guest at the Kyle Hotel.”

According to the paper, teens “harassed the hotel staff into the work hours of the morning for information about Presley. They took up their search again this afternoon

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A Fort Hood master sergeant instructs Pvt. Elvis Presley, right, how to salute shortly after the rock star arrived for basic training at Fort Hood in 1958. The recording artist’s presence created excitement wherever he was — and wasn’t. | COURTESY PHOTO

when school ended. For more than two hours, groups of frenzied fans pushed through the lobby and upper floors of the downtown hotel in search of (Presley).”

Making matters worse, teens surrounded hotel guests, mistaking them for the singer’s parents, Vernon and Gladys Presley. Only one problem: Presley stayed in Waco, not in Temple, and so did his parents. Thus, the Kyle became a “Heartbreak Hotel” for those wandering, disappointed fans.

While Elvis’ career bolted high, he would not return to Texas for two years. This time, he was wearing Army khakis. He was drafted into the Army in March 1958, assigned to the 2nd Armored Division for eight weeks of basic training at Fort Hood.

There was a certain irony that the man who sang “Ain’t Nothing but a Hound Dog” was now nothing more than a GI dog face; his signature pompadour was now a buzz cut.

Like all new recruits, Elvis traveled by military transport bus. While he was en route, a rumor popped up in Corsicana that he was at the bus station, causing fans to shake rattle and roll every nook and cranny of the station.

Problem was, at the same time, he was eating at a Hillsboro Continued

ARMY TURNS 250 | KDHNEWS.COM I 29

café 40 miles away, where sharp-eyed fans spotted him.

Once at Fort Hood, his commanding officers stipulated no reporters or gawkers to disrupt his training. “We’re going to make a soldier out of him,” said his captain.

A columnist for Fort Hood’s newspaper, the Armored Sentinel, was amused at the non-Elvis sightings as visitors and post residents attempted to sneak daily peaks of the singer in his training duties. They were flummoxed as they attempted to chase Army transport vehicles, allegedly carrying Elvis.

One problem: Wherever he was, he wasn’t where anxious gawkers thought he was. The Army refused to let reporters or other unauthorized people see the rock star since he arrived at Fort Hood because they wanted him to be treated like all other soldiers. In fact, the only sure Elvis sighting was at the post’s theaters where his latest movie, “King Creole,” was continuously playing.

Just as “all shook up” Elvis trackers calmed, more ogling opportunities ginned up, thanks to the Army. Officers and soldiers of the 2nd Armored Division marched in under a sweltering Texas sun for the Armed Forces Day parade in May 1958.

“Is Elvis down there?” was commonly heard in the grandstands, according to the Armored Sentinel.

Sure, he was somewhere among the 15,000 troops marching that day.

By that June, Elvis and his fellow soldiers were eligible for a two-week furlough. Thanks to his commanding officers, they were able to sneak out of town five hours earlier than first reported.

A public information officer said Presley had a plane ticket.

That caused a giggling gaggle of fans to gather at the Temple Municipal Airport, then the only commercial airport in the county. The terminal’s ticket clerk told inquiring fans that he had heard Presley bought a Lincoln Continental in Killeen and was driving home to Memphis.

Wherever he was, he wasn’t at the Temple terminal.

By September 1958, the Army decided to transfer Pvt. Presley to Germany, much to the chagrin of his thunderous fans who wanted to get a last look at the rocker before shipped out.

Gawping teens created massive traffic jams accustomed to a calmer lifestyle. Killeen police reported that about 100 cars jammed streets around the house where Presley’s parents lived. Cars drove by the house all week, according to the Killeen Daily Herald, prompting neighbors to complain that rude motorists had even driven across their front lawns to catch glimpses.

Alas, newspapers reported no Elvis sightings before he left for Germany, leaving a hunka-hunka burning disappointment with fans.

As for other Bell County residents, his departure was good riddance. The Belton Journal’s editor said the furor was all humbug: “Elvis, who is only a passing (but not fast enough) fad among the young non-voting set, inspires a mild nausea in most adults. If you aren’t acquainted with his singing, just consider yourself fortunate.”

So, the question remains: Does Elvis’ ghost still linger in the stairwells of the Kyle or hide in Fort Hood’s barracks or lurk in a Temple airport?

No one knows for sure, and Elvis isn’t talking.

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FORT hood: 1960s

Louisiana native drafted into military service in 1961 Editor’s Note: This article originally published in the Fort Cavazos Herald in April 2024.

BY JOHN CLARK

HERALD CORRESPONDENT

R

etired U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Roosevelt Huggins was well on the way to achieving his goal of becoming a biological researcher when a letter from the U.S. government arrived in the mail and changed everything.

Born and raised in Zachary, Louisiana, just northeast of Baton Route, Huggins graduated high school in 1959 and headed to Grambling State University. He was there for two-and-a-half years when he received a “greetings” notification from the military.

“My two younger brothers came to where I was working and gave me this letter,” the 83-year-old Killeen resident said. “Uncle Sam said, ‘I want you.’ That’s what it said. It gave you a little spiel about ‘you have been inducted into the United States Army on the 19th of July 1961,’ and then down at the bottom: ‘I want you.’

“I was OK with it. It was a way out. Where I was working, I was getting $51 every two weeks.”

Huggins reported to Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos) for basic training. Two weeks later, basic was moved to Fort Knox, Kentucky, followed by AIT in Colorado (Fort Carson), and then on to airborne school at Fort Bragg, North Carolina (now Fort Liberty).

“Basic training was real easy,” Huggins said. “I had been running track, so I was in shape. We got our shaved heads, our equipment and everything, and our twenty-dollar bills.

They called it ‘the flying twenty.’ You had to buy a razor, soap, shoe polish, things of that nature.

“Two weeks later, they stopped basic training at Fort Hood and we loaded on a bus and moved to Fort Knox.”

Huggins completed airborne school in December 1961.

After more training, he headed to Okinawa, Japan, back to the States and Fort Campbell, and boarded a ship bound for Vietnam in July 1965.

“When we left Fort Campbell, Kentucky, on July 7th, 1965, some went for six months (and) some for a year,” Huggins said. “There were some who stayed two (years); some who stayed three. We were scheduled to come back to Fort Campbell (but) I didn’t want to go back to Fort Campbell, so I extended for an additional year in order to go to Fort Bragg. I went through my basic airborne training at Fort Bragg, which is the home of the airborne, as we call it.

That’s why I wanted to go back.”

Huggins was in artillery during his two years in Vietnam. He described a fierce November 1966 battle with the North Vietnamese that included hand-to-hand combat.

“It was a rough day. That’s all I can tell you,” Huggins

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Retired U.S. Army Command Sgt. Maj. Roosevelt Huggins was drafted into military service while attending college in Louisiana in 1961. He took basic training at Fort Hood (now Fort Cavazos) for two weeks before basic was moved to Fort Knox, Ky. | COURTESY PHOTO

said. “We were overrun. We got hit between 4 and 4:30 (in the morning). We started receiving rocket fire (and) mortar fire. Everybody made sure they were in position and then they came in on our FDC (Fire and Direction Center). They hit that first and once they did that, we started firing what we called ‘flechettes,’ which is like a shotgun round.

“They were already in by that time, so that meant we had to really fight. We lost several. One guy, Private Smith, did a great job on the outpost with an M-60 machine gun. Laid down good fire, and we just continued to fire flechettes and white phosphorous until we cleared the overrun.

“This is the first time I’ve talked about that to anyone.”

In 1972, Huggins worked at the historic Olympic Games in Munich, Germany. This was the Games in which eight Palestinian terrorists went into the Olympic Village and killed two members of the Israeli team. Nine other Israelis were held hostage while negotiations took place for the release of 200 Palestinian prisoners in Israel. Eventually, Continued

ARMY TURNS 250 | KDHNEWS.COM I 33

the hostages, five of their captors, and a West German police officer were killed during a rescue attempt.

“While I was stationed on Okinawa, I was selected to go to the 1972 Olympics,” said Huggins, who three years later was instrumental in establishing today’s boxing program at Fort Hood (Cavazos). “I wasn’t an Olympics coach. I was one of the coaches for athletic events in the United States Army. I coached boxing and basketball and volleyball in Okinawa.

“What I did at the Olympics was, we would work with different athletic events, such as lightweight boxers. I would show them wherever it was they would like to go.

An event would come up and I needed to move somebody one place or another. We’d get a driver and move them from place to place.

“That morning, we were in Munich. It was our morning to go to the Olympic Village. We were at the cafeteria and we were drinking coffee. We were due in that morning, because the Olympic Village would open between 5:30 and 6:30. We looked up at the television and it had it on. When we got to the village, there was no entry for anyone.”

Huggins retired from the Army in 1991 after serving “30 years, 11 days, and a few hours.” He went back to school at the University of Mary Hardin-Baylor, earned his degree in biology, and was hired as a freshman counselor teaching study skills. He worked there for 12 years, then “retiredretired.”

Married for nearly 58 years to Charmaine, a retired school teacher, Huggins has lived in Killeen for nearly 50 years. A former president of the local NAACP branch, he now serves as chair of the organization’s economic development, housing, labor and industry committee. A lot of progress has been made in things like civil rights and equality, he says, but there is still improvement to be made.

“You have advancement that is far beyond what was back in my days, which was the ‘40s,” the father of two and grandfather of three said. “But you still have a long ways to go. If you look at now and you talk about women’s rights … any rights that you talk about that is not fulfilled, then you still have a long ways to go.”

Huggins grew up in Louisiana in the 1940s and ‘50s, and he remembers things like segregated schools, separate seating at the movie theater, and “white and colored” public restrooms and water fountains.

“It was difficult,” he said. “We had used books with half the pages missing; things like that. If school was within five miles, you walked. That was in the country, where I grew up. It was a little bit different in Baton Rouge because that is a city. I lived about 22 miles northeast of Baton Rouge. You couldn’t use the (public) library in Zachary (his hometown).

You could go to the movie, but you had to sit upstairs in the balcony, and you had to be silent the whole time, or you had to leave. Back then, your parents told you about these things, because they knew what the repercussions would be – people would use derogatory remarks to tell you to leave it alone, get out of there, or whatever.”

Along with all his other accomplishments, Huggins is one of those responsible for bringing the annual Juneteenth celebration to Killeen more than three decades ago. He explains: “Ora Washington is the original individual

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that really galvanized all the information surrounding a Juneteenth (celebration),” Huggins said. “She was past president of the Killeen branch NAACP. She lives in Fort Worth now and is still active in the NAACP for the state. So, she and I got together and we came up with a date. The first official Juneteenth that I know of in Killeen was June 1989.

We had it at the Melba Jo Pioneer Park in Harker Heights.

“I think it’s been a wonderful asset to our community. It gave rise to a lot of information for folks in this area who are not native to Texas to learn about what Juneteenth is. How Juneteenth got started. The Emancipation Proclamation. The two years prior to slavery being released and how the folks reacted once the slaves were freed.”

According to www.history.com: “Juneteenth (short for “June Nineteenth”) marks the day when federal troops arrived in Galveston, Texas, in 1865 to take control of the state and ensure that all enslaved people be freed. The troops’ arrival came a full two-and-a-half years after the signing of the Emancipation Proclamation. Juneteenth honors the end to slavery in the United States and is considered the longest-running African American holiday.

On June 17, 2021, it officially became a federal holiday.”

Huggins adds: “A condensed version of the story is … (Union) Maj. Gen. Gordon Granger finally arrived at Galveston Island (on June 19, 1865) and read the proclamation that the slaves were free in the state of Texas.

There was jubilation and celebration, and everybody felt relieved and felt good about the message that was brought.

They had prayer; they had cookouts; they had the old red soda water that they drank. Now you might call it Kool-Aid, but back then it was red soda water.”

These days, working with young people is a passion Huggins has embraced over the years. He inherited that interest from his mother, who started a scout group and other youth programs back in his hometown Zachary, and it is something that stuck with him throughout his military career and beyond.

“I enjoy people,” he said. “That’s my main thing. What we did back in ’97 with the NAACP — we set up the back to school; stay in school program — was one of my signature events. That was to bring kids together and have a seminar prior to school starting. We targeted all the schools in Belton, Killeen, and Copperas Cove. We started with 17 students and now we’re up to 500. We have it every August.

“We’re working to make sure that economic literacy — financial literacy — is prominent in the area. We want our young people … instead of waiting until they are my age to start saving, we’re teaching them to start now. We’re giving seminars in some of the schools to make sure students are understanding exactly what it is to do to make sure they are able to retire when they want to retire.

“The biggest problem, I think, with older folks is that we have forgotten how to adapt to all these changes that are coming. We have to figure out a way to adapt to those changes, and to develop a trust, if you’re working with the youth. You’ve got to develop a trust factor somewhere. The youth have to trust you, and by all means, you have to trust the youth — and what you are passing on to them has got to be direct and understandable, where they can take it to the next level.”

ARMY TURNS 250 | KDHNEWS.COM I 35

FORT hood: 1960s

Cuban Missile Crisis

1st Armored kept busy during Stewart Tour Editor’s Note: This story appeared in a 1962 edition of the Herald, after 1st Armored Division crossed the country from its station at then-Fort Hood (the division is now at Fort Bliss) to respond to the Cuban Missile Crisis.

BY ANNETTE AUSTIN KILLEEN DAILY HERALD ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED ON DEC. 5, 1962

O

n what will probably become a historic day in the modern history of the United States, President John F. Kennedy on Oct. 22, 1962, announced to the people of the United States that he was instituting a naval blockade of the island of Cuba.

In an nationally televised speech, President Kennedy set forth the reasons for the blockade, describing the military build-up of the island.

Within hours, men of the Army, Navy and Air Force were on the move, beefing up U. S. defenses in the southeastern part of the United States. The 1st Armored Division at Fort Hood was among the activated troops.

Old Ironsides was alerted for movement even before it was officially declared a STRAC unit, and personnel on passes and leaves were called back to the post. Combat equipment was loaded and individual alert bags were checked.

GETS READY

The division went on a 24-hour work schedule as civilian clothes were packed, personal affairs settled and immunizations given to the men.

This was the beginning of a move which 1st AD commander, Gen, Ralph E. Haines Jr., said was unique in the U. S. Army.

“We know of no previous troop movement wherein an entire armored division, with its full complement of men, equipment and supplies for combat, was initiated from a standing start in 24 hours and completed in a little

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U.S. soldiers ratchet down jeeps at Fort Hood, 1962. The 1st Armored Division was preparing to respond in the event that a full-scale war emerged from the Cuban Missile Crisis. | HERALD FILE PHOTO

over two weeks.” It was one of the largest peacetime movements in Army history.

Although Fort Hood officials could not release the news of the division’s activation, anyone driving through the post could easily see that “something was up.”

The post was crowded with men carrying alert bags, hurrying from one building to another, from barracks to cars, from cars to motor pools. Although during normal days at the huge military installation, most trucks and vehicles were lined up in the many motor pools after regular duty hours, they could now be seen lining the streets and roads of the post at all hours of the day.

TRAINS BUSY

Empty trains came into Killeen and Fort Hood daily, and left loaded with the tanks and trucks and armored personnel carriers and other heavy equipment of the division. Although the division markings on the vehicles had been covered, most of the citizens of Killeen knew

that they belonged to the 1st Armored Division.

Rumors were rampant in the city and on the post.

Soldiers who lived in town with their families would leave for work in the morning, not knowing if they would return that night. Wives would listen anxiously for the telephone during the day, waiting for the call that would tell them their husbands were leaving.

The final clue would be when the men were notified to arrange their personal business pertaining to wills powers of attorney, automobiles, and various other lastminute details.

Elements of the division began moving out by rail on Tuesday after the President’s speech on Monday.

The motor pools were swarming with troops as combat vehicles were tuned to the peak of readiness.

The Men of Old Ironsides, most of them raw recruits back in February, now trained and hardened by field exercises, responded to the situation.

Continued ARMY TURNS 250 | KDHNEWS.COM I 37

PREPARED

“Our hospital admission rates dropped to almost zero,” said Gen. Haines. “Our people are mentally and psychologically prepared for any eventuality.”

The loading of the men and equipment speeded up as the men gained experience in the making up of trains that departed two and three times day from the Fort Hood railhead. Civilian airplanes began transporting personnel from the Temple airport.

“We were clearing two battalions a day with the combination of air and rail movement,” said Gen. Haines.

The division’s movement was declared a STRAC mobility exercise and the men were informed they were bound for Fort Stewart, Ga. From that moment, all information of the troops’ destination and activities were almost non-existent. For security reasons, no official word was given out from Fort Hood or Fort Stewart.

People in Killeen, whether military dependents or civilians, had only rumors to keep them abreast of the news of the division.

FLORIDA TOUR

About three weeks later, reports reached Killeen that some of the Old Ironsides troops were camped in the huge Gulfstream Park Race Track in Hallandale, Fla. Also, members of the division were reported to be taking part in amphibious exercises in that state.

The time being spent in the two southern states was

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“This country does not forget God or the soldier.”

— President John F. Kennedy put to full use by the Army. At Fort Stewart, troops underwent extensive training on the confidence course, and were observed on Nov. 14 by Lt. Gen. Thomas W. Dunn, commanding general of III Corps and Fort Hood, who paid a brief visit to the camp.

At Fort Stewart, the men were housed in tents with wooden frames over concrete floors. At the race track in Florida, they were camping in the park’s parking lot adjacent to the track, and in the covered grand-stand.

Down on the Florida coast, elements of the division were growing sea legs, practicing amphibious landings aboard amphibious landing Craft.

As President Kennedy said at the conclusion of his speech to the 1st AD troopers, “Many years ago, according to the story, there was found in a sentry box in Gibraltar a poem which said: ‘God and the soldier all men adore, in time of danger and not before, When the danger is past and all things righted, God is forgotten and the old soldier slighted.* “This country does not forget God or the soldier.”

ARMY TURNS 250 | KDHNEWS.COM I 39

FROM CAMP HOOD TO FORT HOOD: 1942 to 1967

Army marks 25 years in Central Texas ABOVE: Fort Hood soldiers in the Second Armored Division demonstrate a medical evacuation during the post’s 25th anniversary celebration.

AT RIGHT: From left, retired Gen. A.D. Bruce, known as the father of Fort Hood, Lt. Gen. George R. Mather, III Corps and Fort Hood commander, and newspaper publisher Frank W. Mayborn unveil an AUSA marker at Fort Hood on Sept. 23, 1967. Camp Hood opened in 1942.

BELOW: M60A1 Tanks pass in review during a mounted review held to celebrate then-Fort Hood’s 25th anniversary on Sept. 23, 1967.

HERALD FILE PHOTOS

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FORT hood: 1960s & 1970s

Task force Shoemaker

General recalls bold, risky attack in Vietnam war Editor’s note: This story ran in the June 17, 2015 edition of the Fort Hood Herald, as one of a 10-part series on the Vietnam War. Retired Gen. Robert Shoemaker, who was interviewed for this story, died in 2017 at the age of 93.

BY JACOB BROOKS KILLEEN DAILY HERALD

A

s retired Gen. Robert Shoemaker tells it, the U.S. incursion into Cambodia during the Vietnam War began on a Sunday.

Shoemaker, now a 91-year-old Bell County resident, was a brigadier general in the spring of 1970. It was his third tour in Vietnam, and he was an assistant division commander of the 1st Cavalry Division at the time. “(Maj. Gen. E. B.) Roberts, who was the division commander, grabbed me and said, ‘We’ve got to go down and see Gen. Abrams. Gen. (Creighton) Abrams was the commander of the whole Vietnam theater, and his headquarters was in Saigon. So we flew down in a helicopter on a Sunday.”

Shoemaker, who previously served in Vietnam as a battalion and squadron commander for two air cavalry units, quickly learned what the meeting was about.

The 1st Cavalry generals were greeted by II Field Force commander Lt. Gen. Michael Davison, a corps-level commander in Vietnam.

The general “talked to us about the war and the way everything was going. And he had a map, and he pointed to Cambodia.”

The North Vietnamese had built up a massive amount of supplies in the area and were using “neutral” Cambodia as a staging area to help launch wave after wave of attacks into South Vietnam against American troops and their South Vietnamese allies.

“And he said, ‘We may have to go in there... clean it out...

I’ll give you 96 hours notice,” Shoemaker said, recalling the oral order from Davison.

As Roberts and Shoemaker flew back to 1st Cavalry’s division headquarters in Vietnam, Roberts said, “I can’t imagine the Army doing this, but we better get organized,” Shoemaker recalled.

Shoemaker was appointed to be in charge of the task force that would launch the initial attack into Cambodia — a vast jungle, rural area where the enemy was stockpiling weapons, ammunition, rice and other supplies.

To get the job done, Shoemaker was given five air mobile battalions from the division, along with a brigade from the 25th Infantry Division, the 11th Armored Cavalry Regiment and the 3rd ARVN airborne brigade comprised of South Vietnamese troops.

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During the Vietnam War, retired Gen. Robert Shoemaker was a commander for two air cavalry units, and later, as a brigadier general for 1st Cavalry Division, led a bold and risky mission into Cambodia to crack the North Vietnamese supply lines in 1970. | HERALD FILE PHOTO

All told, combined with support and supply personnel, about 35,000 to 40,000 troops comprised Task Force Shoemaker.

“By the time we went in, I had 12 maneuver battalions under my task force,” Shoemaker said.

The mission was vague, bold and risky: Enter Cambodia — previously off limits — to shatter the North Vietnamese supply lines.

“I wasn’t, nor was anyone else, exactly sure what we were going to run into,” Shoemaker said.

His mission was no more specific than what Davison had told him in Saigon: “Clean it out.”

“Our intelligence was very imperfect in that area of Cambodia. We were not permitted, by our rules of engagement” to cross over into Cambodia. Even the maps soldiers used had “blank” spots where Cambodia was.

Shoemaker still was not sure they were going until he

A UH-1 helicopter, much like those used in the 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile) is seen here in the National Mounted Warrior Museum on May 29. | HERALD PHOTO

got the order — orally from his commanding general.

“That night, I got all of the commanders together,” including the South Vietnamese commanders, Shoemaker said.

He told the battalion commanders at that meeting, one by one, what he wanted them to do.

“So far as I know, there was never a written order on the Cambodian operation,” Shoemaker said. “It was one of the few times we scooped the Viet Cong or the (North) Vietnamese.”

And on May 1, 1970, the attack began.

“The basic plan was an assault by the 11th Armored Cav, which had tracked vehicles, and an air mobile assault,” Shoemaker said.

The assault met little resistance.

It was “total tactical surprise,” said retired Lt. Gen. Pete Taylor, a former III Corps and Fort Hood commander and Vietnam veteran. He said the enemy didn’t think Americans would enter Cambodia, and left hundreds of supply dumps mostly unguarded.

“They were confident we weren’t coming,” said Taylor, who, as a major, entered Cambodia with 1st Cavalry’s 1st Battalion, 8th Cavalry Regiment after the initial six-day invasion.

Shoemaker went from unit to unit in his helicopter, encouraging the troops and taking in the big picture. “I required every brigade to call me on secure radio every three hours with a report of what was going on,” he said.

A massive number of supply dumps was found almost immediately in warehouses, buildings, buried under ground and “all of the above,” Shoemaker said.

The task force lost two soldiers in the first three days of the attack, and by May 7, the task force was disbanded,

and the units reverted back to their normal commands.

U.S. forces stayed in Cambodia through June 30, 1970, fighting and uncovering supply dumps the entire time.

U.S. troops found food, vehicles, weapons, including tanks, and “huge stockpiles of the tank ammunition,” Taylor said.

While the mission was hugely successful for U.S. and allied troops in Vietnam, it ignited more protests back in the United States, where the anti-war movement was nearly at its peak.

President Richard Nixon, however, defended the attack, saying it would allow South Vietnamese troops more time to train, and get the Americans out of the war sooner.

“This was to slow them (the North Vietnamese) down,” Taylor said.

“This disrupted their command and control, disrupted their supply lines; it was a total tactical success. ...

Everywhere we went, we found stuff.”

Indeed, when Pat Christ, a Harker Heights city councilman and Army veteran, arrived in Vietnam, the Cambodian campaign had just ended, making his first few months in the country relatively uneventful, he said.

Looking back, Shoemaker said he is quite satisfied with how Task Force Shoemaker was carried out.

“Vietnam, for me personally, was a real learning experience. It convinced me that when you’ve got large forces like that, you’ve got to, very carefully, make sure that every commander knows what you want them to do, give them resources and let the horses ride,” he said. “I’ve followed that general thought all the rest of my career.”

He went on to become a four-star general and head U.S. Forces Command. He retired in 1982 and has been living in Bell County ever since.

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FORT hood: 1970s

‘It could be done’

Editor’s Note: This story originally published in the Herald in 1979.

BY WAYNE HAIR KILLEEN DAILY HERALD ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED FEB. 18, 1979

T

he winter Reforger ’79 exercise to Germany that is drawing to a close as the Fort Hood troops return home and the maneuver in eastern Bavaria called “Certain Sentinel” that came to an early end last week, have provided invaluable training for soldiers from private to general.

According to all military and defense officials contacted, the Reforger exercise was a success in that “we proved it could be done.”

That was the goal of the exercise that the acronym “Reforger” represents “Return of Forces to Germany.”

The additional goal was to move these forces — some with all of their equipment, such as the brigade of the 1st Cavalry Division, and some to use their prepositioned stocks in Germany — all during the winter months.

The maneuver, also designed to test the capabilities of Allied Forces to react to Warsaw Bloc aggression in

Europe during adverse winter months, accomplished its goal, according to the Supreme Allied Commander, Gen. Alexander M. Haig.

Haig singled out the units of the 1st Cavalry Division and the 2nd Armored Division for their participation in the maneuver.

In a press conference at which he announced the premature end to the exercise, he praised the 1st Battalion, 41st Infantry, 2nd Armored Division, for its preparedness when given 96 hours to be on the way to Germany, pick up prepositioned stocks and join in the maneuver. Haig also commended the 1st Cav units of the 2nd Brigade for their conduct, both in the exercise of moving men and equipment from Fort Hood to Europe and their outstanding participation in the maneuver.

Many other individuals and units of Fort Hood helped to make Reforger ’79 a success.

Probably the most instrumental were the movement control soldiers who coordinated the air, sea, rail and ground movement of soldiers and equipment both in the United States and in Europe. Soldiers of the 13th Corps Support Command did not participate directly in the simulated combat, but without them it would have been a war that nobody came to.

Troops from D Company, 440th Signal Battalion, board a bus to Bergstrom Air Force Base on Jan. 12, 1969, to catch a military flight to Germany for Exercise Reforger I. | HERALD FILE PHOTO

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FORT hood: 1980s

Fort Gates

A frontier Hood Editor’s Note: This article originally published in the Killeen Daily Herald in 1981.

BY GRA’DELLE DUNCAN KILLEEN DAILY HERALD ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 22, 1981

T

oday’s GIs might well feel a kinship with the handful of troopers who once manned the frontier post of Fort Gates.

Settlers demanded their protection, disparaged it when it was there and lamented when it was gone.

Situated from 1849 to 1852 within a rifle shot of present-day North Fort Hood, the post was hot in the summer, cold in the winter and fever-ridden. Its location apparently was recommended only by the fort’s proximity to an old buffalo trail used by Indians on both hunting and raiding forays.

And judging by the nationalities of the troopers, the word must have gotten out because few of those in a position to know better were in the ranks. Of the 98 men of Companies D, I, F and H of the 8th Infantry, stationed at Fort Gates during 1850, most were foreign born — 45 from Ireland, 11 from Eng-land, 11 from Germany, and one to three from Canada, Scotland, Mexico and Italy. Only 23 were native born. In addition to the enlisted men, there were six officers.

None of the frontier outposts were designed for comfort, but Fort Gates had to have been one of the worst. The Leon River on the south often overflowed, furnishing a swampy breeding ground for mosquitoes, while a post oak grove extending from the garrison to the river acted as a shield against summer breezes, without deterring a winter norther by so much as a branch.

But there’s always someone to say a good word, and in this case it was Lt. W.H.C. Whiting of the Corps of Engineers, who was sent on a reconnaissance of the western frontier in 1849. He liked Fort Gates. His report literally beamed with praise, noting “few tracts are more interesting to the geologist.

Although, to be fair, he also thought the fort was built in a beautiful valley. But echoes of what the troopers thought probably still haunt the area.

Fort Gates was only one of a cordon of outposts guarding the Texas frontier from Fort Duncan on the Rio Grande to Fort Worth, all built following the Mexican War and named for heroes of that war. Strung from the Mexican border, the forts included in order Duncan, Inge, Lincoln, Martin, Scott, Croghan, Gates, Graham and Worth.

Fort Gates was named for Brevet Maj. Collinson Reed Gates, renowned for heroic conduct in the battle of Palo Alto and Resaca de La Palma. He died of cholera June

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Family members and Coryell County Historical Commission members gather around a new historical marker during a dedication ceremony in 2009 at North Fort Hood. The sign honors the 470 families forced to abandon more than 20 Coryell County communities in 1942 to make way for a tank destroyer range at Camp Hood, now Fort Cavazos. Part of the area also once served as Fort Gates. | HERALD FILE PHOTO

28, 1849, at Fort Martin Scott, prior to the opening of Fort Gates on Oct. 26 of that year.

Having waited impatiently until the war with Mexico was over, the settlers reacted to the new forts with customary ingratitude - often terminating a report of Indian raids with a notation “the soldiers arrived but as usual were too late.”

The commanding officer at Fort Gates retaliated in kind, as indicated in Zelma Scott’s “A History of Coryell County, Texas,” in which she reproduced a report from Gates’ first commander, Col. William R. Montgomery in 1850. It said in part: “Immediately after (a visit to the fort by Comanche Yellow Wolf and his chiefs), most exaggerated accounts reached me that another portion of this tribe had visited and was then at Georgetown, where they were very offensive and had committed outrages. Whereupon I sent Lt. Pickett to look after the case. He found, as I had previously ascertained from citizens residing in that vicinity, that the account was a total fabrication....”

But whether it was pull, fever or routine, Col. Montgomery didn’t last long, ending his tour on July 23, 1850. Capt. James G. Snelling took over and served until Col. Adolphus Waite arrived on March 10, 1851. Waite himself departed Jan. 7, 1852, leaving the post in the command of Lt. Horace Haldemann, a 29-year-old with a wife and three children, who “turned out the lights,” as it were, and marched out what was left of the troops on March 1, 1852.

Excepting various other Indian chiefs, the most noted confirmed visitor at the frontier post was Albert Sidney Johnston, Army paymaster, already a noted soldier and Indian fighter, who later became a Confederate general.

Both Robert E. Lee, later commander of the Army of Northern Virginia, and John Bell Hood, the Confederate

general for whom Fort Hood is named, were in the vicinity and very likely saw all they wanted of the post.

Unfortunately, the Union general Phil Sheridan could not have based his famous remark— “If I owned Hell and Texas, I’d rent out Texas and live in Hell.” — on a visit to Fort Gates.

Fresh out of West Point, he didn’t step foot in Texas until 1853, at which time his assignment may have been equally as bad — or more likely he was just hard to please.

That the Indians regarded the fort with more respect than many of the settlers became obvious when it was abandoned and the hostiles made the life of the settlers miserable during the rest of the 1850s and later.

Many citizens reportedly relocated their stock south of Belton to avoid the path of the Indians or “men disguised as Indians.”

In 1857, area citizens requested the state legislature to send Rangers with orders to “kill, burn and destroy...and our word for it, we’ll soon get rid of these depredations.

But Fort Gates remained closed. Nothing now remains of the old garrison that consisted of 17 buildings, including four officers’ quarters, two company quarters, three for laundresses, one for muleteers and employees, a hospital, a stable, forage house, two storerooms, a guardhouse and a blacksmith shop — not to mention unfinished construction for a third company.

Today, the only tangible reminders of Fort Gates are portions of the old military road leading to it from the south. Here, still visible, are ruts cut deep into the limestone hills where muleteers coming and going between Fort Gates and Houston, Washington-onthe-Brazos or Indianola, locked their wheels, cracked their whips and made the descent without overriding their animals. The dust has long since settled, but the memories never will.

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FORT hood: 1990s

Local Soldier at odds with panel’s combat vote

BY JIMMIE FERGUSON HERALD STAFF WRITER ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED NOV. 11, 1992

A

Fort Hood woman soldier strongly disagrees with the presidential commission recommendation that women in the military should continue to be barred both from ground fighting and combat missions.

Spc. Laura G. Russell, 23, of Company F, 27th Main Support Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division, is a combat medic who served in Desert Storm and was awarded the Combat Medical Badge — a badge that is awarded to medical soldiers who supported an infantry unit that must have been in battle with the enemy.

Russell’s comments came in response to the 15-member commission’s 8-7 vote on Nov. 4 to continue to keep women from serving in combat-related jobs.

“I don’t feel that they were justified in how they voted,” said Russell.

“There were only two members on the board who are on active duty and the others are retired or civilians.

They sent out a questionnaire to only retired military officers to get their opinion. The whole point is the Army is changing every day with new weapons and new equipment and these people are nowhere around.”

In the Persian Gulf war, Russell was near the front lines using some of that equipment to support the 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division, when its soldiers were in battle with the Iraqi Republican Guard.

“We usually stayed back about five miles from the front line until they called us up front to medevac someone.

“My partner and I made more than 50 medevacs of mostly enemy prisoners of war. One time, we were

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Spc. Laura G. Russell, 23, of Company F, 27th Main Support Battalion, 1st Cavalry Division, is a combat medic who served in Desert Storm and was awarded the Combat Medical Badge. | HERALD FILE PHOTO

so far forward, they had to call a cease-fire,” the Swansboro, North Carolina, native said.

Russell also wears the Expert Field Medical Badge. This is a badge for which men and women medics, side by side, individually and in teams, compete against the system in a weeklong exercise n combat

simulated conditions, testing their physical, mental and technical skills. A very small percentage of the challengers comes away with the EFMB. “This is the type of training the commission needs to see. With respect to the retired guys, don’t Continued

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think they know what they are talking about. when they say ‘today’s military female - what role she will play?’ I think they should come to the units and talk to someone who has been through the situation recently. They need to talk to officers who have worked with females,” she said.

Russell added that she has been keeping up with the news on this subject and she is disappointed with some of the board members’ statements.

“Some of the members on the commission made some statements that I consider ignorant about why a female cannot perform in a combat situation. The commission members fought in an army of yesterday, not an army of today.”

One of the reasons the commission had used for its rejection was that women would be detrimental to national security if captured by the enemy.

“That’s hogwash,” said Russell. “Any soldier has his breaking point and mine may be higher or lower than the next soldier’s but being a female does not necessarily make mine automatically lower. And then, they say a lot about rape, that’s the first thing that’s going to happen to her. There’s no doubt that it may happen to me, but I am mentally prepared for it. What man can say the same?”

Russell has been in the Army for the past three years and has been in the same unit since February 1990. There, she met Spc. Neil Russell and they were married Jan. 4, 1992.

She was looking forward to pinning on sergeant stripes after completing the Primary Leadership Development

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“Some of the members on the commission made some statements that I consider ignorant about why a female cannot perform in a combat situation. The commission members fought in an army of yesterday, not an army of today.”

— Spc. Laura G. Russell Course on Nov. 4.

Out of loyalty, Russell said that she only wears the Combat Medical Badge on her dress uniform because her partner in Desert Storm, Spc. Lew Walker of the Medical Command, has not been awarded his.

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FORT hood: 1990s

Gulf War 1st Cavalry fought, lost soldiers days before war erupted

Editor’s note: This story appeared in the Herald as one of a three-part series marking the first anniversary of the 1991 Persian Gulf War, detailing how the Fort Cavazos-based 1st Cavalry Division played a critical role in Operation Desert Storm.

STAFF REPORT

ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED JAN. 17, 1992

F

ort Hood’s 1st Cavalry Division played a key but underreported role in Gen. Norman Schwarzkopf ’s brilliant “end-around” maneuver that destroyed the Iraqi army last year.

The First Team used artillery raids, patrols and ground attacks to convince the Iraqis the main coalition attack would come up the Wadi Al Batin, a traditional invasion route, and diverted their attention from the actual route chosen by Schwarzkopf.

Because of the 1st Cavalry Division’s success in completing its assigned mission, Schwarzkopf was able to catch the Iraqi army by surprise with a devastating attack from their flank.

“Although the war lasted 96 hours for a lot of American units, it lasted over 30 days for the Cav,” Col. Randolph House, former commander of the 2nd “Blackjack” Brigade, said in a recent interview.

“We were moved up there well before the ground war and started to make contact with the enemy, started blowing up the berm (the boundary between the two countries) and doing things to make the enemy think that was where the main coalition attack was coming.”

While the Cav was tricking the Iraqis into leaving their western flank open for the real main attack, other units were being talked about on the news.

That was tough on the families back home.

“We were doing things, they were hearing rumors. Then the casualties started. Four days before G-Day (ground war startup) I have three dead and nine wounded and the national press is saying the ground war hasn’t started,” House said. “That was hard on the families back here. As commanders, we could never tell the people back here that we were part of a deception operation. I mean, if you are going to have a deception you can’t be talking about it.”

By this time, the Iraqis were definitely paying attention to the Cav. “I’m sure their intelligence could tell that we were starting to gather up supplies and forces behind us.

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Responding to Iraq’s invasion of Kuwait, troops of the U.S. 1st Cavalry Division deploy across the Saudi desert on during preparations prior to the Gulf War on Nov. 4, 1990. | ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

We were shooting at them with artillery, going on raids day and night, going on ambush patrols — mounted and dismounted.

“On the afternoon of the 19th of February, five days before G-Day (ground attack day), General Schwarzkopf sent down the word through the chain of command that he wanted the First Team to go up the Wadi Al Batin the next day to continue to galvanize their limited intelligence collection assets on us,” House said.

“This was when he was starting to shift the rest of the 7th Corps and 18th Airborne Corps over to the west for the big move around the western flank. My mission was to take elements of the brigade at noon on the 20th into Iraq and make contact with the enemy.”

To reinforce the deception, the Blackjack brigade soldiers probed directly into the toughest defenses — mine fields, barriers, obstacles, artillery and direct fire “kill-sacks” and fire trenches — the Iraqi army could build.

“We were to try to determine what they were doing and elicit a response from them. We wanted to hit them hard enough that they thought we were serious about coming up. We went up with tanks and Bradleys and all the artillery booming and with the MLRS (Mulitiple Launch

Rocket System) — and started us a big war.

“That was four days prior to G-Day. We got into a fight that lasted all afternoon. We overran an enemy battalion, destroyed several of their vehicles, got through their mines and barriers and bunkers. Once we were in the middle of it and knew we had their attention, but before they could inflict heavy casualties on us, we pulled back into Saudi Arabia,” House said.

There was no guarantee the deception would work.

“You never know for sure if the enemy is going to take your head fake. If you’re the quarterback and you’re doing something like that, you never know for sure. I think that’s why General Schwarzkopf wanted us to punch up there so see if they really thought that was the way they were coming,” House said.

“We could tell from their response, and the way they started shooting at us with heavy artillery and showing their hand, that they truly thought that the whole coalition attack was coming up the Wadi Al Batin. That’s what General Schwarzkopf wanted and that’s what we did,” House added.

“At one point we were receiving fire from over a hundred tubes of artillery. There was no doubt from the Continued ARMY TURNS 250 | KDHNEWS.COM I 53

fight we got on the 20th of February up the Wadi that they were ready for us to come that way.

“I think that was very reassuring to the folks that were planning future activity.

“It was a heck of a fight. But with the aggressiveness of our soldiers in returning fire and in maneuvering and the quality of the equipment and training; in performing in actual combat exactly how we had been training at the National Training Center and at Fort Hood... we built up the firepower and just overcame them,” House said.

“Usually, in your first fight, things don’t work out very well. Well, that was the first fight for the American forces.

We were the first to go into Iraq. I was just amazed at the professionalism and the calmness and the aggressiveness of the American soldier in his first taste of blood,” House said.

“I think it’s a credit not only to great soldiers and equipment but to what we do in our training — the readiness of the force.

“Unfortunately we lost three soldiers killed and nine wounded in that fight,” he said.

House, who was decorated for bravery in Vietnam, had high praise for his soldiers.

“The soldiers performed absolutely magnificently ... they were performing under intense direct and indirect fire as if it were an NTC MILES (National Training Center Multiple Integrated Laser Engagement System) training exercise.

“I was the only guy scared out there. They were

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performing exactly like we had trained. The radio network was so calm. The first guys to get shot at were the scouts from the 5th Cavalry. I was listening to his net (the scouts) and he said ‘receiving fire, returning same,’ — and he said it just that calmly while I was watching the bullets bounce off his track (armored vehicle).

“They are just a superb bunch of soldiers. In Vietnam, I spent a lot of time telling my soldiers why they were there, what we were doing and all of that. Over in Saudi, I spent the precious time preparing the guys for the fight,” House said.

“They had the complete support of the American people. They knew why they were over there and they knew we were not going to come back until the job was finished. It was a superb performance with great equipment and absolutely fabulous soldiers. The best we have ever had,” House said.

House said the resources that were expended to produce the kind of army that could perform the way his brigade did in combat came from the willingness of the American people to support a strong defense.

“All of that costs money and the American people had said ‘That’s what we want.’ They got one great army. I just hope that in this period of declining resources, and as the Army gets smaller, that we still get the support we need to maintain what the American people expect: a professional army that is prepared to go and do what the president, the command authority and the American people want us to do.”

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FORT hood: 2000s

U.S. Forces to ‘Kick Butt’ Editor’s Note: This article originally ran in the Killeen Daily Herald in 2003.

BY KEVIN J. DWYER KILLEEN DAILY HERALD ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED MARCH 21, 2003

F

ORT HOOD — With Operation Iraqi Freedom less than a day old Thursday, Fort Hood soldiers reacted to the start of the second Persian Gulf War with mixed feelings.

“My first reaction is hope, hope that our guys are meeting with the success they surely will,” said Maj. Steve Warren, commander of 1st Cavalry Division’s Headquarters and Headquarters Company.

“My thoughts are with the 3rd Infantry Division. I’ve got personal ties with guys who are there and I can relate to what they’re doing,” Warren said. The 3rd ID is the Army’s one heavy mechanized unit now pushing north into Iraq.

Warren said he knows the 3rd ID will do well, mainly because the 1st Cav’s commanding general, Maj. Gen. Joe Peterson, once commanded the division.

“Those guys are just going to go kick butt,” Warren said. “My hopes and prayers are that nobody gets hurt, but some will. That’s the nature of the business.” Since most of the post’s soldiers have received deployment

Soldiers from the 4th Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, exit their plane and walk across the flight line as they return from a year-long deployment to Iraq on Aug. 25, 2011, at Fort Hood. | HERALD FILE PHOTOS

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Angela Amoako gives a sullen goodbye to her husband, Sgt. 1st Class Kwesi Amoako, as his unit 13th Sustainment Command deploys to Kuwait in support of Operation Enduring Freedom on Dec. 6, 2014.

orders of some type, they are watching the events in the Persian Gulf closely.

“It wasn’t a surprise; something was bound to happen,” said Pfc. Sarah Houtler. “It’s a little bit weird because Continued

ARMY TURNS 250 | KDHNEWS.COM I 57

you’ve got the feeling, ‘Wow, I could be there,’ but I’ve adjusted to it and don’t feel nervous.”

Warren said the kickoff of hostilities in the Persian Gulf definitely got his soldiers’ attention. “I think that what’s going on over there needs to go on to keep everybody safe here and around the world,” said Spc. Robert Garrison.

Spc. Hector Vicenty said he feels the same way Garrison does. “I watch the news and see what’s going on over there. The people of Iraq want to be free,” Vicenty said.

Vicenty, who started off his Army career as an infantryman, said he has mixed feelings about watching the war on television. Part of him, he said, wants to be there, and the other part does not.

“I just got married a year ago and my wife’s expecting a baby in October,” Vicenty said about his feelings of not wanting to deploy. “But, I’d like to go over if I could and liberate the Iraqi people from Saddam and give them the freedom we have here in the United States.” Other soldiers, like Warren, have personal ties to the soldiers and Marines fighting in southern Iraq.

Two of Sgt. Richard Shannon’s old units — the 101st Airborne Division and the 1st Marine Division’s 1st Battalion, 5th Marine Regiment — are both part of Operation Iraqi Freedom.

“I’m ready,” Shannon said. “It seems in my career, I’ve always been one step from deploying, but now it’s caught up to me.” Shannon, like the other soldiers, believes it will not be long before the 1st Cav and the 4th Infantry

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Staff Sgt. Charles McFarland, left, and Lt. Col. Winston Brooks, both of Battery B, 3rd Battalion, 82nd Field Artillery Regiment, 2nd Brigade Combat Team, 1st Cavalry Division, say goodbye to children as they leave the village near Bagram Airfield, Iraq, on Jan. 7, 2014. | U.S. ARMY PHOTO

Division head overseas.

The 4th ID received its deployment orders Jan. 20, and the 1st Cav on March 5.

“It’s going to be hard to leave my wife and kids, but it’s what I get paid to do,” Shannon said. “I was telling my wife that the feeling to be the first person to step over the border would be tremendous — a once-in-a-life time feeling.”

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FORT hood: 2010s

WOMEN IN COMBAT

Fort Hood leaders support opening jobs to female soldiers

BY JACOB BROOKS

KILLEEN DAILY HERALD ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED DEC. 6, 2015

F

ort Hood’s biggest combat unit — the 1st Cavalry Division — could see more women in combat jobs in the years ahead if a plan to open all combat jobs to women continues.

Currently, the division has close to 25,000 troops, and about 7,250 of those soldiers have combat jobs that are currently not available to women.

Defense Secretary Ash Carter announced Thursday that beginning in January, all military occupations and positions will be open to women, without exception.

Nearly 220,000 jobs, about 10 percent of the military, had been closed to women.

“They’ll be allowed to drive tanks, fire mortars and lead infantry soldiers into combat,” Carter said “They’ll be able to serve as Army Rangers and Green Berets, Navy SEALs, Marine Corps infantry, Air Force parajumpers and everything else that was previously open only to men.”

At Fort Hood, the main combat jobs closed to women are infantry, armored crewman and scouts.

According to Fort Hood officials, the 1st Cavalry Division is currently authorized by the Army to have about 4,400 infantry positions, 1,150 armored crewman positions and 1,250 scout positions. The division also has about 450 soldiers known as forward observers, who come into contact with the enemy and call for artillery.

Armored crewman, or “tankers,” operate Army battle tanks, mainly the M1A2 Abrams. Scouts often use Humvees or other vehicles to patrol the battle zone in front of other units.

All those jobs will open to women as part of Carter’s new policy.

“We all just heard the announcement, and the implementation is going to be an Armywide plan driven from the top in the coming weeks, but we’ll support it wholeheartedly at Fort Hood,” said III Corps and Fort Hood spokesman Col. Christopher Garver, who is deployed with the corps in the Middle East. The corps, which deployed in September, is tasked with leading the ground attack against the Islamic State in Syria and Iraq.

Other combat jobs, including most artillery and combat engineer positions, were opened to women during the past three years.

In late 2012, the Army opened up more jobs to women, including Bradley Fighting Vehicle and Abrams tank mechanics, artillery radar specialists and crew members

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Copperas Cove High 2008 graduate Shaye Haver became one of two women to be the first female soldiers to complete the Army’s grueling Ranger School. | ASSOCIATED PRESS FILE PHOTO

for the highly destructive artillery weapon, the multiplelaunch rocket system.

Some female soldiers are already settled in to some of those jobs.

“I’m new at my job, so I’d definitely like to take advantage of it and learn everything I possibly can at this point,” said Fort Hood Pfc. Alissa Jacobs, an MLRS crewman, in an interview earlier this year.

In 2014, Maj. Christina Cook became the first woman in the 1st Cavalry Division to qualify on the Bradley Fighting Vehicle, which means she passed a series of live-fire tests leading a Bradley crew down a Fort Hood firing range.

Cook said she needed to qualify on the Bradley when she became the operations officer for an engineer battalion.

“I just happened to be in the right place at the right time,” Cook said, explaining her male crew members saw her as just another officer instead of a female officer.

In another example that may have helped pave the way for Carter’s historic announcement Thursday, 2008 Copperas Cove High graduate Shaye Haver became one of two women to be the first female soldiers to complete the Army’s grueling Ranger School. Haver, a first lieutenant and Apache attack helicopter pilot stationed at Fort Carson, Colo., graduated from the Ranger school in August.

Less than a month later, the Army announced the school would be open to women on a full-time basis.

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FORT hood: 2010s To today

Legacy of War

Decades later, Afghanistan still impacting central texas Editor’s Note: This article originally published in the Killeen Daily Herald on Dec 15, 2019.

BY DAVID A. BRYANT KILLEEN DAILY HERALD

O

n Oct. 7, 2019, the U.S. marked 18 years of war in Afghanistan, the longest combat conflict in U.S. history.

Documents obtained recently by The Washington Post revealed that many high level U.S. officials felt the war had been bungled across all three administrations, with many missed chances to end the war.

The Post had conducted a lengthy investigation leading to the release earlier this month of the documents that contained interviews with U.S. and Pentagon officials.

Many officials interviewed said they were never clear on the strategy in Afghanistan.

Clear objectives are needed if the U.S. is to end the war and bring all the troops home, according to a retired general from Gatesville.

Retired Lt. Gen. Paul Funk Sr. retired prior to the beginning of the War on Terror, but is a veteran of the Vietnam War and Operation Desert Storm. He said having clear objectives could have ended the conflict shortly after it had begun.

“In my lifetime, the only time we ever had real objectives was during Desert Storm,” Funk said. “We were given clear objectives, we went in and completed those objectives, and then we came home.”

Funk said that while he is not in the loop on decisions made for current operations in Afghanistan, he suspects that operations similar to Desert Storm were supposed to be the original mission plan.

“What we ought to do now, is, I think, we should pack up and get out of there,” Funk said. “If you look at this from a historical perspective, there is no winning in Afghanistan. Alexander the Great found that out. The Mongols found that out. No one has succeeded there. The only way is for the Afghans to succeed there themselves.”

Although the Korean War is technically America’s longest war, U.S. troops have not been officially in combat with North Korean troops since an armistice was signed in 1953.

U.S. troops have, however, been in combat in Afghanistan since they first arrived under Operation Enduring Freedom to destroy al-Qaida’s ability to plan

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U.S. Army Pfc. Justin Pierce, a cavalry scout, provides security for fellow troopers in the Parwan province of Afghanistan in 2018. | U.S. ARMY PHOTO

and execute terrorist attacks on American soil. Al-Qaida was supported by the Taliban, an Islamic fundamentalist group that controlled Afghanistan at the time and sheltered the terrorists and their leader, Osama bin Laden. The Taliban continues to fight to this day against the democratically-elected Afghanistan government and NATO troops stationed there.

And Fort Hood has not been spared during the last 18 years. More than 65 Fort Hood soldiers have been killed, including three in 2019.

In 2003, NATO took command of the United Nationsmandated International Security Assistance Force Mission, which included 51 NATO and partner nations fighting alongside the Afghan National Defense and Security Forces, according to the State Department website.

NATO formally ended its International Security Assistance Force combat mission in Afghanistan on Dec. 31, 2014, and handed it over to Afghan forces. On Jan. 1, 2015, the NATO-led mission “Resolute Support” began, with the separate mission to train, advise and assist Afghan security forces.

On Dec. 7, U.S. peace envoy Zalmay Khalilzad held the first official talks with Afghanistan’s Taliban since September, the Associated Press reported on Tuesday.

The talks will initially focus on getting a Taliban promise to reduce violence, with a permanent cease-fire Continued

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being the eventual goal, said a U.S. statement.

Khalilzad is also trying to lay the groundwork for negotiations between the Taliban and Afghan government. However, Suhail Shaheen, the Taliban’s spokesman in Qatar, told the AP that “ceasefire and reduction of violence will come after the peace agreement is signed.”

There have been more than 2,400 U.S. military deaths in Afghanistan since combat operations began, and over 20,600 U.S. service members have been wounded in action, according to a Defense Department casualty report dated Dec. 9, 2019.

Many of those wounded in action were left with lifealtering injuries, such as missing limbs or severe burns.

The number of casualties does not include the number of service members left with the invisible wounds of war, such as post traumatic stress. Nor do those numbers account for the more than 60,000 veteran and active duty suicides over the last decade, reported by the Department of Veteran Affairs in September.

The number of casualties also does not include those who have become ill or have died years after their combat service due to deployment-related exposures. Those exposures included inhaling the toxic smoke from burn pits, which were used to destroy every type of waste from medical to batteries at locations across Afghanistan and Iraq. Other airborne hazards included the smoke from burning oil fires and small particulates of heavy metals carried by sand storms.

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At least 66 soldiers and airmen stationed at Fort Hood have been killed in Afghanistan, according to Herald records. Another soldier killed, although stationed at Fort Carson, Colorado, was a 2009 graduate of Killeen High School.

On Nov. 20, 2019, Chief Warrant Officer 2s David C. Knadle and Kirk T. Fuchigami Jr. died when their Apache helicopter crashed while providing security for troops on the ground in eastern Logar Province. Both were with 1st Attack Reconnaissance Battalion, 227th Aviation Regiment, 1st Air Cavalry Brigade, 1st Cavalry Division at Fort Hood.

Earlier in the year, in June, Sgt. James G. Johnston was killed in Uruzgan Province, Afghanistan. He was assigned to the 79th Ordnance Battalion (Explosive Ordnance Disposal), the 71st Ordnance Group at Fort Hood but was attached to the 2nd Battalion, 10th Special Forces Group (Airborne), from Fort Carson, Colorado, during his deployment.

As of this month, there have been more than 19,000 Fort Hood soldiers who served or are currently in Afghanistan, according to recorded reports. Many deployment numbers are missing from the annals of Fort Hood and newspaper archives, and Fort Hood officials stated no records were kept on which units deployed and when, but the first local troops were reassigned from Kuwait to Afghanistan in December 2001. As of October 2019, nearly 1,000 are still serving overseas as the conflict continues.

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NAME CHANGE

Cavazos in, Hood out

One of Army’s largest posts renamed Editor’s Note: This article originally published in the Killeen Daily Herald on May 10. 2023.

BY DAVID A. BRYANT KILLEEN DAILY HERALD

F

ORT CAVAZOS — It’s official: The name of Fort Hood is now Fort Cavazos.

Army leaders on the post adjacent to Killeen made the name change during a ceremony Tuesday morning.

The ceremony marked the end of an era. To mark the official name change, Fort Hood garrison’s colors — a large yellow and red flag — were cased for the final time on post at the III Armored Corps headquarters.

Immediately after, a new set of colors were unfurled for the very first time, signaling to the world that Fort Cavazos garrison was ready to begin its duty as “The Great Place.”

First stood up as Camp Hood in October 1942, the post did not become Fort Hood until turned into a permanent installation in April 1950, nearly eight years later. After more than eight decades of a Central Texas U.S. Army post named after Confederate Gen. John Bell Hood, the redesignation honors a Texas son GEN. RICHARD with deep ties to the post as one of E. CAVAZOS its former III Corps and Fort Hood commanders who went on to command the U.S. Army Forces Command as the Army’s first fourstar Hispanic general — Gen. Richard E. Cavazos.

More than 300 people attended the ceremony, including about 60 family members of Cavazos.

“What we do in this renaming and redesignation process is look for soldiers who reflect our values, who recognize and exemplify what we want the Army to look like,” said Under Secretary of the Army Gabe Camarillo, the key address speaker for the ceremony. “We want to show what the Army can be. When you look at (Cavazos’) record, what he has done as a highly decorated soldier, somebody who cared passionately about his troops, somebody who took the time to train and mentor and was also innovative, not only on the battlefield but off of it.

“We have no better example than General Cavazos, so giving him and us the opportunity to reflect that in this redesignation ceremony, is something we are very excited about.”

During the ceremony, retired. Lt. Col. James M. Tucker, 90, who served under Cavazos during the Vietnam War, spoke about his late commander and just what he meant to the soldiers who served under him.

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After casing the Fort Hood flag, the Fort Cavazos flag to officiate the name change to the military base. | HERALD PHOTO BY WALTER LANIER

“Let me tell you about Cavazos and what he would do,” he said. “He’d go to a unit, he would ask to see the most junior members of that organization, and he would always spend time with the lowest ranking soldier he could find.”

With that, Tucker requested from Lt. Gen. Sean C. Bernabe, the III Corps and Fort Cavazos commander, to send his most junior soldier under his command to Continued

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the podium as he spoke. After speaking of what made Cavazos a “soldier’s soldier,” he then gave the young private a hug and briefly spoke with the soldier, thanking him for his service.

“I haven’t hugged a grunt in over 40 years,” he said. “I was just a dumb grunt, but the smartest dumb grunt I ever knew was Dick Cavazos.

“When I mention his name, I cry.”

During the ceremony, Bernabe spoke about the importance of one of the largest military installations in the world and the impact the post has upon the nation’s might, regardless of the post’s name.

“For over eight decades, The Great Place has been the installation of choice, nestled very tightly in a community of choices,” the commander said. “Now, given the importance of this installation to our Army and for our nation, I can think of no better name change than General Richard Cavazos. I did not know General Cavazos, but I wish I had.”

LASTING LEGACY

Bernabe called for Cavazos’ legacy to live on and inspire others.

“Let his name, and all that it represents, inspire us all every single day to live up to his legacy. As a warrior, as a soldier’s soldier, as a master trainer, as a military innovator, as a coach and mentor and as a humble servant leader,” said the three-star general.

Retired Lt. Gen. Randolph W. House, who served as Cavazos’ aide-de-camp while he was III Corps and Fort Hood commander, spent the 33 years after Cavazos retired as his unofficial aide.

“General Cavazos once told me, if you’re lucky, you will meet one great man in a lifetime. There are many people here today, me included, who were very fortunate because we met General Cavazos,” he said. “A humble soldier and a truly great man by any standard.

“General Cavazos was a ‘King’s man.’ He was born on the King Ranch, where at a very young age he began to learn how to lead, teach, coach, mentor and motivate others,” House added. “During my lifetime, he was the Army’s most gifted orator. He was able to inspire and motivate like no other.”

After the Fort Hood colors were cased and the Fort Cavazos colors officially unfurled for the first time, members of the Cavazos family joined Bernabe to watch on a large screen as the main Bernie Beck Gate sign was unveiled to reveal the post’s new name.

“The effort to rename and redesignate Fort Hood to Fort Cavazos was first driven by Congress,” Camarillo said. “It was legislation that recognized that all the installations have to reflect the values we have as a country and as the Army. I couldn’t be prouder of General Cavazos’ contributions. He is an example in many ways of what makes the Army great.”

Cavazos was the III Corps and Fort Hood commander from 1980-1982. His name was already memorialized in the Killeen-Fort Cavazos area with an elementary school named after him in Nolanville.

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FORT CAVAZOS TODAY

Major units at Fort Cavazos III ARMORED CORPS

First organized in 1918 for service in World War I and known as “America’s Hammer,” the III Armored Corps provides command and control over 90,000 troops across five U.S. Army installations. Soldiers from its four divisions and seven independent brigades can be found deployed around the globe, and together make up about 40% of the U.S. Army’s combat power. The corps commander, Lt. Gen. Kevin D. Admiral, and its command sergeant major, Command Sgt. Maj. John McDwyer, also oversee five installations: Fort Cavazos and Fort Bliss in Texas, Fort Sill in Oklahoma, Fort Carson in Colorado, and Fort Riley in Kansas. III Armored Corps moved to Central Texas in 1954 and has been continuously active as a deployable headquarters element since 1961.

1ST CAVALRY DIVISION

Known as America’s First Team, the 1st Cavalry Division is currently under the leadership of Maj. Gen. Thomas M. Feltey, who took command in July 2024. The command sergeant major is Command Sgt. Maj. LeVares J. Jackson Sr. It has three armored-brigade combat teams and an air cavalry brigade, as well as artillery and sustainment units and the Division Cavalry.

More than 15,000 soldiers wear the unit’s distinctive, large patch. Two unique assets are the Division Band and the Horse Cavalry Detachment, a company-sized unit with more than 30 horses to present a living history of the cavalry. The division fought in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Iraq and Afghanistan, among others. The division was first stationed at Fort Cavazos in 1971.

FIRST ARMY DIVISION WEST

First Army Division West has the mission of training, readiness oversight and mobilization for U.S. Army Reserve and Army National Guard units. The division is headquartered at Fort Cavazos and commanded by Maj. Gen. William A. Ryan III. It has four training brigades

Then-Maj. Gen. Kevin D. Admiral, commander of the 1st Cavalry Division, cuts and serves cake to Troopers during a celebration of the Army’s 249th birthday on June 14, 2024, in Boleslawiec, Poland. Admiral is now lieutenant general and commander of III Armored Corps. | U.S. ARMY PHOTO

stationed at Fort Cavazos and other installations.

OPERATIONAL TEST COMMAND

U.S. Army Operational Test Command is headquartered at West Fort Cavazos and commanded by Brig. Gen. Shannon-Mikal Lucas. As the Army’s only independent testing organization, it plans, conducts and reports rigorous operational tests, assessments and experiments in order to provide essential information for the acquisition and fielding of warfighting systems.

The command has about 240 soldiers and employs about 340 Department of the Army civilians to maintain its operations and has directorates at Fort Sill, Oklahoma, Fort Bragg, North Carolina, and Fort Bliss.

3RD CAVALRY REGIMENT

The 3rd Cavalry Regiment is led by Col. Jeffrey Barta, the 80th commander of the regiment. On order, the “Brave Rifles” deploy to designated contingency area of operations by sea, land or air and conducts combined arms operations to prevent conflict, shape the operational environment and win any fight. The 3rd Cavalry Regiment uses the battle cry “AI-EE-YAH!”

13TH ARMORED CORPS SUSTAINMENT COMMAND

The Howdy Y’all resource fair is held twice a year at Fort Cavazos to introduce arriving military families to the post. | HERALD PHOTO BY BRENT JOHNSON

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The 13th Armored Corps Sustainment Command is led by Brig. Gen. Sean P. Kelly. Its mission is to deploy, provide command and control of assigned, attached and operationally controlled units, and plan and provide sustainment, distribution and health service support for full-spectrum operations. Nicknamed “Lucky 13,” 13th ACSC also maintains training and readiness authority over dozens of units across the western U.S.

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FORT CAVAZOS TODAY

Brave rifles return from Korea rotation

Editor’s Note: This story originally ran in the Fort Cavazos Herald in October 2024.

BY BRENT JOHNSON FORT CAVAZOS HERALD

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ORT CAVAZOS— The last remaining deployed soldiers of 3rd Cavalry Regiment returned home from South Korea, their 21-hour flight from Osan touching down at roughly 6:30 p.m. after stops in Japan and Alaska.

After disembarking from the plane, the group of more than 100 of the “Brave Rifles” took buses to Cooper Field to meet their waiting families and friends.

Family members held signs reading “hand over my daddy” and “home is where the heart is, and mine is finally home,” while awaiting their soldiers. One Army wife hung a large cardboard sign atop the bleachers ordering her husband to “report for booty” later in the evening.

Unlike previous flights back from the nine-month overseas tour, this contingent included regimental and squadron command teams, who ceremoniously unfurled their unit standards to signify the regiment’s garrisoned status. Col. Jeff Barta and Command Sgt. Maj. Mikeal McInroy uncased the colors for the regiment, while leaders from each of its seven squadrons did the same for their units.

Lt. Gen. Kevin Admiral, the commander of III Armored Corps, showed up to greet the troops with a “Brave Rifles” combat patch on his right shoulder sleeve. Admiral commanded 3rd Cavalry from 2015 to 2017 and led the regiment in Afghanistan, before eventually returning to lead its parent division and corps.

“I know you’re not looking for a long speech, I’ll just say Brave Rifles, welcome home,” Admiral told the formation.

“We’re super proud of what you’ve done on the Korean Peninsula, you’ve written a fantastic new chapter in your history and we’re proud of you.”

Repeating a tradition also followed by the first planeload of the unit’s 4,000 troops last month, these soldiers fell out of formation as their loved ones met them in the center of the field, mimicing a charge into battle.

After walking through a sea of reuniting families, Barta and McInroy talked to reporters about the regiment’s first deployment to Korea in its 178-year history.

“It was phenomenal,” McInroy said. “We got to do so much training with our ROK (Republic of Korea) allies— plus the cultural experience that our troopers got to do, go

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Amberlee St. John and son Archer welcome Spc. Alex St. John home from Korea at Cooper Field in 2024. | HERALD PHOTO

out and see different areas... Actually experience Korea as a country, it was phenomenal.”

“Our forces are super interoperable, but at the same time have special, unique ways so we can learn from each other and be better together,” Barta said of the training ROK. “The troopers really had fun just sharing memories with the ROK Army soldiers, sharing the food, shooting together— seeing their capabilities and then showing off what they can do.”

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FORT CAVAZOS TODAY

1st cavalry comes home

Commander talks training with Ukrainian and NATO militaries

BY BRENT JOHNSON KILLEEN DAILY HERALD ORIGINALLY PUBLISHED APRIL 2, 2025

T

he troopers of 1st Cavalry Division officially marked their return from a 10-month tour in Europe with a color uncasing ceremony the afternoon of March 27, just as an isolated rain storm began to soak Fort Cavazos’ Cooper Field parade ground.

Four brigades of the storied troop formation — Sustainment Brigade, Division Artillery, Air Cavalry Brigade and 1st Brigade Combat Team — deployed along with its headquarters element to the eastern NATO nations starting last February, totaling about 5,400 troops.

Augmented by a brigade rotations from 3rd Infantry Division and 3rd Infantry Division, its mission was to build combat readiness among allied militaries amid the ongoing Russian war on Ukraine.

As the wind blew the rare storm in on the soldiers’ Stetson hats, each unit commander and senior enlisted advisor removed the camo-colored case from their respective unit guidons simultaneously to signify its “redeployment,” or return to its permanent duty station.

Unit guidons, or “colors,” are part of a military tradition thought to date back to Ancient Egypt — originally employed to identify friends and foes in battle.

Now, their use is largely ceremonial, with streamers bearing the unit’s campaign credits attached to the top of the pole.

The 1st Cav Horse Detachment capped off the event with its traditional horse-mounted “cavalry charge” drill, riding across the length of the field and firing blanks from their Colt Model 1873 revolvers. A flyover of an AH-64 Apache attack helicopter, which would usually accompany the charge, was called off due to the weather, division officials said.

Division commander Army Maj. Gen. Tom Feltey, spoke to reporters following the event, expressing “great satisfaction” at the accomplishment of 1st Cav’s training mission in Europe. If the 3rd Cavalry Regiment’s monthslong tour in South Korea last year is included, he said, it was the largest out-of-country deployment of the division’s troops since the 2007 Iraq War troop surge.

“The big lesson that I took away from being so close

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Senior leaders in 1st Cavalry Division stand at attention during a color uncasing ceremony March 27 at Cooper Field, Fort Cavazos. | HERALD PHOTO

to that threat that was inside of Russia was that we have to change the way we fight now,” Feltey said after commending the unit for completing its mission. “You could feel the threat, and you can see that our NATO allies, especially Poland — I mean, they recognize that threat and Poland was just spending money and building capacity that I’d not seen anywhere else, anytime before.”

At the small-unit level, the commander said a big learning experience for troopers was working with Polish and Lithuanian territorial defense units, as well as training with Ukrainian soldiers fresh from the front lines.

“One of the big lessons we learned from training with the Ukrainians was their use of unmanned aerial vehicles — I mean we learned a whole lot about how they trained their UAS operators, how they deploy their small UAS, how they do all their targeting with them,” he said.

“Ironhorse Brigade (1st Brigade) had the opportunity to train those units right before they went back on the front line …We took away a lot from that, so we’re bringing all of that operational experience that the Ukrainians had on the front lines, and we’re bringing that into our

Transformation in Contact efforts.”

Speaking about what’s next for the division, Feltey pointed to 1st Cav’s designation as one of a select few units to implement the Army’s Transformation in Contact initiative across the army, tasked with leading the “Pegasus Charge” into a new way of warfighting.

“We will lead the effort with the armored brigade combat team …I think this akin to just like when (Army Col.) Hal Moore was the commander of 1st Squadron, 7th Cav, and he led the 1-7 Cav into Ia Drang in Vietnam, the Air Cavalry,” Feltey said. “It’s that type of, like, innovation that we’re going to see here at Fort Cavazos, at the Great Place, we’re going to bring that out to the Army so that we’re ready for anything.”

The Atlantic Resolve mission was originally a small deployment of individual brigade-sized units, first organized in response to the Russian annexation of Crimea in 2014 to reassure other nations bordering Russia. Since Russia’s full-scale invasion of Ukraine in 2022, it has become a rotational force of fully-equipped Army divisions, training alongside allied armies to potentially resist an invasion in their own countries.

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FORT CAVAZOS TODAY

Life after the Army

Veteran credits CTC degree with transition into entrepreneurship

BY WENDY SLEDD SPECIAL TO THE HERALD

F

or Trae Mitchell, a former soldier turned smallbusiness owner, the degree he earned from Central Texas College was more than a personal milestone.

It was the bridge between military service and a thriving civilian career.

Mitchell served in the U.S. Army from 2006 to 2013 as a 92Y unit supply specialist, a role that gave him hands-on experience in logistics, inventory, and organization.

“My decision to join was rooted in a deep sense of family tradition and legacy. My grandfather served, and I wanted to follow in his footsteps,” Mitchell said. “Beyond that, I was driven by a desire to further my education and saw the military as a means to achieve that goal, both financially and personally.”

While serving, Mitchell began taking classes at CTC and continued after separating from the Army. He graduated in 2015 with an Associate of General Studies.

“CTC was the ideal choice for me because of its flexibility,” he said. “I was able to take classes both domestically and while stationed overseas. Their military-friendly programs and understanding faculty made a huge difference.”

Balancing military duties with academic responsibilities was extremely challenging.

“It took me longer than expected to graduate because deployments and mission-critical deadlines sometimes made it impossible to attend class or even access the internet. There were moments, especially while deployed, where I had to prioritize the mission over everything else,” Mitchell said. “What surprised me the most was how determined I became to finish. Despite the setbacks, I kept pushing forward.”

Mitchell used his GI Bill benefits to help fund his education, which ultimately laid the groundwork for his post-military life.

“Earning my degree at CTC was a pivotal milestone. It gave me the confidence and credibility to start my own business,” he said. “It showed me that learning doesn’t stop after the military. You have to keep building and growing. That mindset has been instrumental in my business journey.”

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Trae Mitchell, a former Army unit supply specialist with the 1st Cavalry Division, served from 2006 to 2013. Using his GI Bill, he earned an Associate of General Studies from Central Texas College in 2015, a degree that helped him transition to civilian life and launch his own successful business, The Barbershop Company.

PHOTOS COURTESY OF CTC

Now a successful entrepreneur and owner of The Barbershop Company, Mitchell credits both his military and educational experiences for his accomplishments.

“The military gave me the tools; education helped me refine and apply them. Together, they’ve created the foundation for my success,” Mitchell said.

His advice to other service members?

“I would highly recommend pursuing college —

especially while serving, if possible. Education opens up doors you might not even know exist yet,” Mitchell said“It’s not just about the degree; it’s about the people you meet, the ideas you’re exposed to, and the discipline you build. Networking through school can lead to business partnerships, career opportunities, and lifelong friendships. If you’re on the fence, start small. Just one class. You’ll be surprised at where it can take you.”

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FORT CAVAZOS TODAY

The Bradley Fighting Vehicle, among other armored vehicles and tanks, is exhibited at the National Mounted Warrior Museum at Fort Cavazos. | HERALD PHOTO

History comes to life

Mounted Warrior Museum tells Army’s story

BY BRENT JOHNSON KILLEEN DAILY HERALD

A

fter a decade of effort by a dedicated group of veterans and civic leaders, the long-awaited National Mounted Warrior Museum opened its doors to visitors last September, offering visitors to the Killeen area a chance to see Army history without having to get a visitor pass and go through a security gate.

The U.S. Army has employed mounted troops in combat since its inception in 1775, first on horseback and later in tanks and helicopters — and this cutting-edge facility displays artifacts from every era since then, with a special emphasis on the mounted formations that call Fort Cavazos home.

Located next to the Marvin Leath Visitor Center outside Fort Cavazos, the museum was a dream of the late Gen. Robert Shoemaker, who commanded III Corps in the 1970s and became a local community leader after retiring to Harker Heights. Shoemaker died in 2017, but the National Mounted Warfare Foundation led the effort to bring that vision to life with a facility that, unlike past museums dedicated to individual units, showcased the whole history of American mounted warfighters.

Visitors can take a tour through time in the main exhibit hall, which displays countless artifacts curated by Department of the Army history staff.

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Ranging from the uniforms and equipment of America’s earliest cavalrymen to the UH-1 Iroquois helicopter and the mighty M1 Abrams tank still in use today, the main exhibit covers all its bases.

To the right of the main exhibit hall entrance is a smaller room for short-term displays.

That space first housed a tribute to Leonard Zwick, an Army combat photographer who documented the Allied advance into Normandy in World War II. His photographs and camera equipment have been displayed there since the museum’s opening in September.

Another temporary exhibit in October and November of last year, titled “from Combat to Creativity,” featured artistic works from artists in Army art therapy programs.

SPECIAL PROGRAMMING

This year, according to exhibits curator Maisie Duncan, the museum will be working with other Army museums on programming for the Army’s 250th birthday on June 14, as well as a special exhibit on the Vietnam Conflict.

“We have the 60th anniversary of the first Army ground troops officially in Vietnam, as well as (the battle of) Ia Drang, which is pretty important to the 1st Cavalry Division’s history,” Duncan said. “Part of our mission, along with preserving Army history, is to help educate soldiers on their unit history — build esprit de corps, Continued

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T

ORAL HISTORY PROJECT

he following veteran oral histories were recorded by the National Mounted Warfare Foundation, Both men served in Operation Desert Storm, the 1991 U.S. war to remove Iraqi dictator Saddam Hussein’s forces from Kuwait. Their stories can be played back in their entirety through special handsets in the National Mounted Warrior Museum at Fort Cavazos, among the many other interesting exhibits in that museum.

GEORGE DUNCAN

“Our first major engagement with the (Iraqi) Republican Guard’s Tawakalna Division, we fired a TOW missile into a T-72 (Russian tank). It was probably an engagement of 1800 to 2000 meters — that caused a rapid rush to the rear of several others (Iraqi units).

The humanity of the American soldier at that moment of “I’ve got you” is remarkable, simply remarkable. No one else fired a TOW missile — everyone else figured, you know, what’s the necessity with them running? This is not a turkey shoot, that’s not what we’re here for. We’re here to ouster Iraqi forces ...”

BRIAN DOSA

“I see our CEV (armored vehicle) throw a track and have our soldiers that are in that vehicle in harm’s way, and having to figure out how to get them rescued from that vehicle with lots of enemy forces around us and artillery falling. That would definitely be the most memorable.”

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things like that.”

In the longer term, the group that raised the initial funds for the museum’s construction has plans for additions to the building that will make it more of an event space for both the Central Texas and Army communities. “(The classrooms) will be outfitted with all the high-tech stuff that we need to do conferences and classes, and bring in school kids, bring in university students — have folks do their unit reunions here, potentially do weddings and parties,” said Bob Crouch, vice president of the National Mounted Warfare Foundation. “We really think that’s the next big component, because it makes it not just a museum, but a kind of an event center or miniature convention center.”

IF YOU GO

According to III Armored Corps, an average of more than 2,500 people per month have visited the new facility since its opening. The National Mounted Warrior Museum is at 105 Trooper Loop, Fort Cavazos. Hours of operation are 9 a.m. to 5 p.m. Tuesday through Friday, and 10 a.m. to 5 p.m. Saturday.

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