View Full Version : The destruction of the Green Beret Club is complete
Team Sergeant
09-15-2014, 17:39
The destruction of the Green Beret Club.
Well done and thank you to the Command on Ft. Bragg, the Food Network and Robert Irvine, you have completely destroyed the Green Beret Club, an iconic place in our short history.
Green Beret Club featured on 'Restaurant: Impossible'
Posted: Sunday, September 14, 2014 12:00 am
In July, the Food Network brought chef Robert Irvine and his "Restaurant: Impossible" team to Fort Bragg to give the Green Beret Club an extreme makeover.
The result? A restaurant with an updated image and menu that preserves the spot's history.
Irvine had two days, $10,000 and the help of 100 volunteers to make it all happen. But the details of how the Green Beret Club became the Smoke Bomb Grille remains unknown.
The episode featuring the makeover airs Wednesday, Sept. 17 at 10 p.m. on Food Network.
It will reair several times after that - Thursday, Sept. 18 at 1 a.m. and Sept. 24 at 11 p.m.
- Jessica Banov
http://www.fayobserver.com/military/green-beret-club-featured-on-restaurant-impossible/article_b0781cf7-b695-5c14-ad29-5245561e908f.html
We should find some Viking architects and makeover chef Robert Irvine...
miclo18d
09-15-2014, 18:30
Where are all the "Groupies" going to hang out?
Hell, I'm sure the operators of CA/Psyop will love it......
Streck-Fu
09-15-2014, 18:59
Is it true that memorabilia is missing?If, so, Irvine needs to answer up.
The Reaper
09-15-2014, 19:00
Is it true that memorabilia is missing?If, so, Irvine needs to answer up.
They pitched it out and gave the SF Museum Curator a couple of hours to take what she wanted before it hit the dumpster.
TR
Streck-Fu
09-15-2014, 19:05
They pitched it out and gave the SF Museum Curator a couple of hours to take what she wanted before it hit the dumpster.
TR
Holy fvck....Please tell me someone secured that dumpster....
Hard to believe it's gone - but if the Army of Excellence can turn the "I Bar" into an effin' Little Caesar's take-out, well... :rolleyes:
Last time I was at the GBC was my promotion to CPT while DetCdr ODA-724 - I ran an "OPEN TAB" until closing and ruined a set of dress green's helping dig out SGM (Ret) Dick Warren (my first ODB SGM in '72 when I was a medic on ODA-714) after he got his truck stuck trying to leave the club that night.
I CAN NOT believe there is no GBC at Fort Bragg - the home of SF. :eek:
And so it goes...
Richard
DinDinA-2
09-15-2014, 20:23
So, where does one go now to find an ice cold Mickey's Bigmouth?
The Reaper
09-15-2014, 21:35
I think it would not have been necessary, but for the fact hardly any SF guys had been there for years.
I have been maybe three times in the past year, more and more, it was a junior PSYOP and CA Club, for a quick drink on the way home (or back to the barracks). Very few customers, almost no SF unless it was a function. We got run out at 1900 one night because they were closing. They used to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, stayed open till the last paying customer left, and recently, they were down to just a few bar menu items after work. I didn't even see any of the jalapeno popcorn they used to be famous for. The fact that the MPs used to stake it out has not helped either.
The real problem was that they moved all of the SF off Smoke Bomb Hill, and the remaining SF no longer patronized it.
They really should have moved the Club to the 3rd, 7th, USASOC, USASFC area, and my understanding is that they tried, but the area they wanted to put it in, had red-cockaded woodpeckers there first.
The sad truth is that the SF soldiers and retirees on Ft Bragg have not patronized it, and the best features of the club went away. MWR runs it, and they did not like to lose money. If this remodel fails, they will probably close it for good.
Sadly, I guess its time has come and gone.
TR
The Green Beret Club will ALWAYS be EXACTLY the way "YOU" remember it.
The folks that hang out in that building now have no idea what kind of "place" the Green Beret Club is. The Smoke Bomb Grille is just a building.
The Green Beret Club was a 'place'.
That "place" is just somewhere else now.
No granola munching reality tv show can change the Green Beret Club as I remember it...
Fort Bragg probably wants to forget that you might have seen drunk girls showing their boobs at the GB club...
...for that matter up until the late 1980's you could still see titties at the Yntema club.
Well, the morality police can turn the Green Beret Club into a grille that serves 82nd airbornE divisioN (I like to capitalize the wrong letter when I am being intentionally disrepectful) ...82nd themed hamburgers but they can't erase the fact that there are a lot of us out there that know what REALLY went on in that building in the past.
...an all american burger and some flavored tea can't change the fact that you're still sitting in a spot that had a drunk topless biker chick standing there not all that long ago while SF guys swilled pitchers of beer and cheered at her Regimental Crest tattoo.
Eating a hippy hamburger wont make you an "operator" and the image of that girls tattooed titties are forever suspended in time - just because you pretend that SF guys never paid strippers to come and pull out their boobs at the GB club dont change the facts. The building has a "spirit" that no amount of redecorating will ever remove.
Who knows, maybe they are just trying to soften the atmosphere so the new wave, alternative, LGBT, female commando era of SF people will have someplace to gather once the politicians finish forcing their cultural tolerance experiments down everyones throats. For now, the CA/MISO folks seem to have a blast hanging out in the building, and they dont really deserve to be hanging out in a PLACE called the "Green Beret Club" anyway. I'd rather see them retire the name than continue to watch it get over run by second hand SOF that just like to claim that they hang out at the "GB Club"...
The fallen brothers that we used to toast to, well, they don't deserve to be toasted in a place over run with the current crowd. They deserve much better than that.
No problem, we will go somewhere else and take the memory of our fallen brothers with us.
Like TR said, "The sad truth is that the SF soldiers and retirees on Ft Bragg have not patronized it, and the best features of the club went away."
Just because you can't get creamed beef on toast for breakfast anymore doesn't change the past...
Just because you can't get jalepeno popcorn anymore doesn't change how good it was while it lasted...
I see the redesign of the Green Beret Club as somewhat of a much needed euthanasia before "our place" was forced to lend its name to a bunch of wannabe-hangouts, second hand SOFers, and Regimental history usurpers. Over the last ten years, going to that place was like watching my favorite dog suffering...
...You love spending time with the old girl, but eventually, you have to put her down.
The Smoke Bomb Grille is unlikely to ever put so much as a softdrinks worth of my money in its cash registers, but like I said, the Green Beret Club wasn't just a "building", the Green Beret Club was a "place".
Maybe I'll buy another beer at the Green Beret Club someday, if I can just find the right "place"...
I think it would not have been necessary, but for the fact hardly any SF guys had been there for years.
I have been maybe three times in the past year, more and more, it was a junior PSYOP and CA Club, for a quick drink on the way home (or back to the barracks). Very few customers, almost no SF unless it was a function. We got run out at 1900 one night because they were closing. They used to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, stayed open till the last paying customer left, and recently, they were down to just a few bar menu items after work. I didn't even see any of the jalapeno popcorn they used to be famous for. The fact that the MPs used to stake it out has not helped either.
The real problem was that they moved all of the SF off Smoke Bomb Hill, and the remaining SF no longer patronized it.
They really should have moved the Club to the 3rd, 7th, USASOC, USASFC area, and my understanding is that they tried, but the area they wanted to put it in, had red-cockaded woodpeckers there first.
The sad truth is that the SF soldiers and retirees on Ft Bragg have not patronized it, and the best features of the club went away. MWR runs it, and they did not like to lose money. If this remodel fails, they will probably close it for good.
Sadly, I guess its time has come and gone.
TR
TR is right back in 2004 USASFC had X amount of dollars to do whatever they wanted. I knew the SGM that was in charge of it. What he said was key people within USASFC, SWC and National SFA didn't want it moved over the Histroy of the site. Even after a Committee showed how there was no longer SF units around the Club. The talk was to move it over close to where USASFC, 3rd or 7th were at. Two sites had pine trees one it and the cost was to much. The other one or two had projected building for the future, one being where the new 3rd Group HQ building is and the teh futre AFSOC bulding in 3rd Group area. I believe there was one other site from what this SGM said.
So this with some SWC OT's the SGM remodeled the GB Club. MWR took it over after that, it was running great, but a Red head, can't think of her name now. But she left for a 10th Group Guy and the new manager that took over changed everything, she sucked. It was ran into the ground. BG club made ore money that Sports USA did each quarter, that speaks at the amount of volume of people that went there on Fridays!!
It should have been moved over. I rememner SFA guys going there for Breakfast and Team Guys going for lunch. My ODA would head over there after for during the week, just to show that it was a SF Club. Fewer and fewer Current ODA members went, so the Reginment in my eyes lost this club to post. But Current and former, when everyone started to go to Charlie Mikes over the GB Club, that put the nail into the coffin. Really sad to see a part of SF History go away. IMO this is a factor of GWOT.
Roguish Lawyer
09-16-2014, 08:44
During my visits to Bragg, none of you guys ever wanted to go there anyway. Well, except Martin was kind enough to take me so I could see it on my first trip . . . :boohoo
Billy L nailed it. That's just how it was in the late '70s-80s. While nothing lasts forever, your memories last until you die.
The Green Beret Club will ALWAYS be EXACTLY the way "YOU" remember it.
The folks that hang out in that building now have no idea what kind of "place" the Green Beret Club is. The Smoke Bomb Grille is just a building.
The Green Beret Club was a 'place'.
That "place" is just somewhere else now.
No granola munching reality tv show can change the Green Beret Club as I remember it...
Fort Bragg probably wants to forget that you might have seen drunk girls showing their boobs at the GB club...
...for that matter up until the late 1980's you could still see titties at the Yntema club.
Well, the morality police can turn the Green Beret Club into a grille that serves 82nd airbornE divisioN (I like to capitalize the wrong letter when I am being intentionally disrepectful) ...82nd themed hamburgers but they can't erase the fact that there are a lot of us out there that know what REALLY went on in that building in the past.
...an all american burger and some flavored tea can't change the fact that you're still sitting in a spot that had a drunk topless biker chick standing there not all that long ago while SF guys swilled pitchers of beer and cheered at her Regimental Crest tattoo.
Eating a hippy hamburger wont make you an "operator" and the image of that girls tattooed titties are forever suspended in time - just because you pretend that SF guys never paid strippers to come and pull out their boobs at the GB club dont change the facts. The building has a "spirit" that no amount of redecorating will ever remove.
Who knows, maybe they are just trying to soften the atmosphere so the new wave, alternative, LGBT, female commando era of SF people will have someplace to gather once the politicians finish forcing their cultural tolerance experiments down everyones throats. For now, the CA/MISO folks seem to have a blast hanging out in the building, and they dont really deserve to be hanging out in a PLACE called the "Green Beret Club" anyway. I'd rather see them retire the name than continue to watch it get over run by second hand SOF that just like to claim that they hang out at the "GB Club"...
The fallen brothers that we used to toast to, well, they don't deserve to be toasted in a place over run with the current crowd. They deserve much better than that.
No problem, we will go somewhere else and take the memory of our fallen brothers with us.
Like TR said, "The sad truth is that the SF soldiers and retirees on Ft Bragg have not patronized it, and the best features of the club went away."
Just because you can't get creamed beef on toast for breakfast anymore doesn't change the past...
Just because you can't get jalepeno popcorn anymore doesn't change how good it was while it lasted...
I see the redesign of the Green Beret Club as somewhat of a much needed euthanasia before "our place" was forced to lend its name to a bunch of wannabe-hangouts, second hand SOFers, and Regimental history usurpers. Over the last ten years, going to that place was like watching my favorite dog suffering...
...You love spending time with the old girl, but eventually, you have to put her down.
The Smoke Bomb Grille is unlikely to ever put so much as a softdrinks worth of my money in its cash registers, but like I said, the Green Beret Club wasn't just a "building", the Green Beret Club was a "place".
Maybe I'll buy another beer at the Green Beret Club someday, if I can just find the right "place"...
Billy L nailed it. That's just how it was in the late '70s-80s. While nothing lasts forever, your memories last until you die.
What BEEF Said, Well said Billy-L!!!
Bill Harsey
09-17-2014, 20:25
Anyone watching? It's on now.
Let me know what you think, Bill. That bit about the memorabilia is disturbing.
I think it would not have been necessary, but for the fact hardly any SF guys had been there for years.
I have been maybe three times in the past year, more and more, it was a junior PSYOP and CA Club, for a quick drink on the way home (or back to the barracks). Very few customers, almost no SF unless it was a function. We got run out at 1900 one night because they were closing. They used to serve breakfast, lunch and dinner, stayed open till the last paying customer left, and recently, they were down to just a few bar menu items after work. I didn't even see any of the jalapeno popcorn they used to be famous for. The fact that the MPs used to stake it out has not helped either.
The real problem was that they moved all of the SF off Smoke Bomb Hill, and the remaining SF no longer patronized it.
They really should have moved the Club to the 3rd, 7th, USASOC, USASFC area, and my understanding is that they tried, but the area they wanted to put it in, had red-cockaded woodpeckers there first.
The sad truth is that the SF soldiers and retirees on Ft Bragg have not patronized it, and the best features of the club went away. MWR runs it, and they did not like to lose money. If this remodel fails, they will probably close it for good.
Sadly, I guess its time has come and gone.
TR
This isn't towards TR, but to evryone, GB or Non-GB. So the club was doing poor and needed a face lift. Hell I remember then face lift of 2004 that SGM Nann did with his crew of SFQC OTs did for the club. So for all of the soldiers in and around the location of the GB, the SF Soldiers and Retirees that had gone or went to the GB Club. If the club was still the GB club and if you seen the TV Show and seen what is looks like now would you have gone or be going to it over going to Charlie Mikes or what ever your local hang out it. I feel another resaon for the demise of teh GB Club was the closing of the post. The fact that Retirees and old timers had to drive onto post, then driven and hang out with fellow Brothers, then drive back off post scared many poeple.
I think a point that Richard brings up is critial. I don't see from a CPTs, to a new MSG to a Senior or flag Officer holding "their" EVENT at the GB club anymore. I was going to hold my retirement party/BBQ or whatever until this happen. I can tell you that members of my ODA still went there to hang out after work, becuase it was our club and we were Green bBerets that cared about our club and not some off post establishment.
Another question, for all the SF people on Bragg that are on here. To all the People working nwo as a Retiree within a SF Unit or Command ever get a Post level, USASFC or USASOC Survey over the renovation of teh GB CLub? I know I never saw one in my Inbox for the USASOC Global or my AKO box. Yet Post conducted a Survey over the renovation for the Club to get the "input" of the Soldiers.
TrapperFrank
09-18-2014, 11:36
I viewed the episode of the show and am very conflicted. In this world, the sad reality is no bucks, no Buck Rodgers. I also work in the entertainment industry and can tell you nothing on that type of television show happens by accident. "Reality" television is scripted to the nth degree. What I found most disturbing was the only SOF involvement in the whole program was input from the USASOC PAO. In a show about the renovation of the Green Beret club, we were treated to the views of a REMF LTC, scenes of the 82nd Airborne's Advanced Airborne School students and cadre giving input on changes to be made to the GB Club and Robert Irvine doing PT with a Headquarters section from the 325. For what it is worth, the general public is so divorced from the military that the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces are for the most part, one in the same to them. The Regiment lost an important part of it's history.
I viewed the episode of the show and am very conflicted. In this world, the sad reality is no bucks, no Buck Rodgers. I also work in the entertainment industry and can tell you nothing on that type of television show happens by accident. "Reality" television is scripted to the nth degree. What I found most disturbing was the only SOF involvement in the whole program was input from the USASOC PAO. In a show about the renovation of the Green Beret club, we were treated to the views of a REMF LTC, scenes of the 82nd Airborne's Advanced Airborne School students and cadre giving input on changes to be made to the GB Club and Robert Irvine doing PT with a Headquarters section from the 325. For what it is worth, the general public is so divorced from the military that the 82nd Airborne and Special Forces are for the most part, one in the same to them. The Regiment lost an important part of it's history.
Thanks for the info.. I took this whole event as post didn't want a GB Club anymore. They never sent anything out, I never heard of them coming over to 3rd Grp or even GSB which is close to the GB CLub. So no survey was sent to any SF Units, just to Conventional. I guess someone up at Post level was still pissed over 82nd Losing their Red Beret Club in the 90's. Really piss poor. Also that USASOC PAO needs to be fired if the RUMINT is true of Roxanna not getting word to come down to get any of the SF Memorbililia from the Building. That part is very poor of here and even Post.
x SF med
09-18-2014, 23:00
Being allowed to go into the GB Club after graduation, and having one of my instructors buy the first beer...
And then, listening to the stories of the decline of the GBC over time...
usacivpol
09-21-2014, 09:53
Gentlemen,
The episode has aired so I am free to post all the photos before/after the transition.
I was told to go photograph the Green Beret club no instruction or preamble just go take photos.
I didn’t know what was going on until I talked to the manager. When she said that all the memorabilia on the wall was to be removed I started photographing everything.
I apologize in advance, I only had an on camera flash with me and the lighting in the club was terrible. I kept as much glare out of the shots as I could.
I am told that USASOC scanned all the photos that were taken down.
The Green Beret Club photos are here.
http://www.paraglideonline.net/collection_c4fc5e84-3f4f-11e4-923c-0017a43b2370.html?mode=nogs
The Smoke Bomb Grill photos here.
http://www.paraglideonline.net/collection_2db03e02-3f4e-11e4-81c9-0017a43b2370.html?mode=nogs
The old version looked homey, comfortable - someplace you could relax.
The new version kinda' looks aseptic - and the way they did the Green Beret Club in the corner just screams "Cheesy!" Go over there to sit and it screams "Look at Me" - whether you're GB or not.
Thanks for the pictures.
That's not a 'rebirth' that's an abortion.
Has all of the warmth of a fast food McDonalds....nice, the GB Club part looks like a freakin penalty box.
Comsmith22
03-08-2015, 19:50
I used to Go to the "GBC " for Lunch Once a week when I was On the Commo Committee (83-88)...
The Last time ( 04) I was in the "GBC" I got a Rubin and Miller Lite for Lunch while waiting for My old Company commander from B190 (93- 94)... it was a great Joint Back then ...
Now I am going to go to the Place to see what the Mis-Placed Brit has done to our Old Watering Hole...
Gentlemen:
Correct me if I'm wrong here but I remember the "first" GB Club was located down the street from the original Med Lab. To refresh memories, the original Med Lab was run out of the ruins of the old WWII hospital across the street from the new Womack Army Hospital. I remember enjoying a brew and steak sandwich after patient pen cleanup (1976 time frame). Was this not the first location of the GB Club? If not, does anyone recall this watering hole and it's real name?
Thanks!
Qdini, I remember a "Rucksack Inn", over near that way. I think that may have been it. Or it may have been when it moved to the Smoke Bomb hill area...memories fadin'...:)
Commsmith22, we were on the 18E committee together?? I was there 87-91...
Thanks for the memory jog!
It was called the Rucksack Inn.
Orange/White parachute over the bar, lots of HALO photos on the walls. SF guys hanging out. I didn't get to Smoke Bomb Hill very often as a student since you practically had to live at Med Lab to learn what you needed to know. The Rucksack Inn was close and convenient!
My question is: Was the Rucksack Inn the precursor to the Green Beret Club on Smoke Bomb Hill or did they exist at the same time? I know they tore down the Rucksack Inn just prior to them razing the original Med Lab.
Later on, my Team Room (Green Light) was just across the street from the GB Club on Smoke Bomb Hill so spent a lot of time in there. I recall it seemed "new" to me at the time (1980). A few years later it seemed to turn into a "yuppie club" with legs and wannabes hanging out. Not at all the same high class ambiance as the Rucksack Inn where the guy sitting next to you would pop you off your bar stool if you pissed him off.
Yep. I remember titty dancers at the clubs, Happy Hours and fried chicken gizzards. When a pitcher of beer with your team mates over lunch was considered fine and dandy.
The GB Club was originally on Smoke Bomb Hill and moved over to the Hospital area for a few years and then moved back.
The decor was pretty Spartan while in the Hospital area.
Both the GB Club and 82nd Club were Sport Parachute Clubs in the early days. When the GBC moved over to the hospital area we went there a few times but it was more convenient to go over to the 82nd SPC.
The 82nd Sport Parachute Club was at the N/E corner of Yadkin and Reilly Roads back in the pine trees next to a small dirt FLS.
The Rucksack Inn IIRC was the small single story bar on Smoke Bomb Hill down east by (couple building up) the wood church. That was also known as Annex something or other.
Pete:
Thanks for setting me straight. I do remember the Rucksack Inn near the wooden church, while the GB Club on Smoke Bomb Hill was operating. Very Spartan and I seem to remember the team guys hung out there to avoid the "yuppified" GB Club.
I gather from your post that the club located next to the original Med Lab was in fact, the GB Club for at least a few years....... Now, I'm uncertain to it's actual name.
Thanks to all for keeping this small part of SF history alive.
.. club located next to the original Med Lab was in fact, the GB Club for at least a few years....... Now, I'm uncertain to it's actual name.....
It was the Green Beret Sport Parachute Club. They ran classes there during the week and would meet on Saturday mornings and go out to the DZ for jumps.
joesnuffy
03-09-2015, 21:15
Just got to see the before / after pics of the GBC. I like the before photos way better. I only went there once for lunch while in the Q and was blown away by the amount of history there, I spent a good 15 minutes just looking at all the photos. Don't like the "makeover" one bit.
I'd rather they bulldoze the site and use it for parking space.
...instead they sell "All American Burgers"
but what difference does it make anyway - everyone is special these days
Charlie Mikes..the rather unofficial GB Club post Restaurant Impossible...needs assistance during this COVID shutdown. This has become where folks actually do congregate, hold retirements and share a drink...I'd hate to see it die.
https://www.gofundme.com/f/charlie-mikes-and-thai-pepper