Quote:
Originally Posted by Aoresteen
I've tried searching QP and Google but can't find anything on this. My questions is, why was 5th Group moved to Campbell in 1988? Then two years later 3rd Group was re-activated at Bragg. Why wasn't 3rd Group just activated at Campbell?
I was just wondering. Thanks!
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OK.... This may get a little long but here is pretty much how it happened.
5th Group was a Desert Group. We had recently (within a year or two) moved from Smoke Bomb Hill to over by Pope to some delapitated WWII bldgs.
5th Gp was slated to move to Ft. Bliss. There was huge political pressure to move to Ft. Campbell from a couple of Senators and at the same time there was talk that another group (3rd) was going to be stood up. Anyway, these Congressmen from Kentucky wanted their very own SF Group at Ft Campbell. COL Guest was trying to get people out of Bragg and get an ADVON (5th Gp FWD) to Bliss thinking that if he had people already down there it would be easier for his arguement in that money had already been spent sending personnel down and standing people up. At the time ODA 581 and 582 were AKA (B-500 (Second Edition) Not to be associated with Blank Frank Tony and the first edition that got kicked out of Australia).
Anyway, COl Guest (he may have may BG by then I can't remember) managed to get us (B-500) orders and had put us on stand by a couple of days earlier telling us that when we got orders...get off of Bragg ASAP. We did. The day a couple of us left people were trying to recall the orders and stop us from leaving. We were prepared and didn't answer our phones.
We got to Bliss and ended up becoming A/1/5 (ODAs 511 and 512).
The rest of 5th Group ended up at Campbell. The reason 5th moved to Campbell and not 3rd was a matter of logistics. The Senators won and A group was going to end up at Campbell. Since 3rd group was a NEW unit, it was authorized new barracks wherever it ended up. However it 5th stayed at Bragg, it was going to be stuck in the old WWII baracks. So it was determined that 5th would move to Ft. Campbell which would give them new facilities and 3rd would be stood up at Bragg and a new compound would be built.
Fast fwd to 1989/1990. LTC Kinsinger hated that we were part of his BN but he didn't have immediate access to mess with us. Even though we as a Co. owned more training area at Ft. Bliss than Ft. Campbell in it's entirety. This was mostly due to some old fashioned SF dealing and a really good S-4 guy named SSG Tom Beach. We also had an agreement with BLM to use thousands of acres in New Mexico (and Oro Grande) for Desert Survival. In addition, we had our own ranges that were totally under our control that had a 180 degree shooting house on it as well as linear targets, to include a bus. We were working on getting a 737 body when we were shut down...but that''s another story.
Anyway, SGM Clough and Kinsinger made a deal with us (They lied to us) and talked us into submitting 4187's to PCS to Campbell on the guarantee that we wouldn't PCS for 18 months. Orders started showing up in 3 months.
If you check official records, you will find that A Co. (the guidon was at Ft. Bliss) was never officially moved from Bliss. They simply essentially PCSed all personnel out of the unit.
And that.....is the real story of 5th Group moving to Campbell