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Old 05-05-2012, 18:08   #16
The Reaper
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When did they restrict ID holding visitors?
When FORSCOM built a command center on CMK and their employees started using the Camp Rowe DFAC.

I was a visitor to CMK several times before I was a student, spent a few cold nights in the tarpaper shacks.

I went through Phase I in Feb 84. We stayed in the tin Quonset huts for the first few weeks, then moved into the tarpaper shacks after we came back from survival. There was one remaining Quonset hut the last time I was there in 2007 or so, it was TMC 14.

Back in my day, the mess hall was a line of mermites or C Ration cases, and we ate on picnic tables outside, regardless of the weather.

There was one small latrine back then, with a half dozen sinks and toilets. There were a few shower heads, and they had one 50 gallon hot water tank for the entire class.

Then they tore down the shacks and built the "million dollar shitter." Then they built an even larger latrine building to accomodate the increased student load.

I stopped and spoke with Lowell the last time a few years back. I just stopped by his WW II HQs building to say hello. It was full of stories, like he was, and it was three hours later before I could get away. The man literally knew more about CMK than anyone alive. I thought he had finished his book, I guess from the article he had not.

RIP, MSG Stevens. See you on the far side.

TR
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Old 05-05-2012, 19:24   #17
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FORSCOM has a CC on Mackall...for what purpose...no room on Bragg...freakin assholes.
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Old 05-06-2012, 07:03   #18
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Warm showers at Mackall ?

In the spring of 1969, we, (no Dusty, I don't have a mouse in my pocket) would use a hand pump to get water from a well into a barrel mounted on a platform, stand under the barrel and open a spigot for a refreshing shower

Needless to say we were, generally, a stinky bunch.
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Old 05-10-2012, 15:40   #19
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Another brass plaque for the trainees to keep polished in their spare time...

Richard
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File Type: jpg Stevens Hall.jpg (15.4 KB, 104 views)
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Old 05-10-2012, 16:07   #20
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Another brass plaque for the trainees to keep polished in their spare time...

Richard
This is good..
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Old 05-10-2012, 16:41   #21
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Very Nice.....
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Old 05-18-2012, 15:01   #22
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I'd almost take a trip to Mackall just to see the hand to hand pit again. For some reason that detail remains burned in my memory. Let's see, summer of '84, in the pit sweating profusely and fighting each other with rubber knives while listening to the song on the camp PA system.

I just don't seem to have that type of fun anymore.
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Old 06-05-2012, 05:52   #23
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Could not pull up the map but great memories of that place and time. Our kitchen was a field kitchen under a GP Medium, we had the Million Dollars Bath room that seldom had hot water where we all washed our clothes in the sinks. Hard to understand how we fit all those men and duffel bags into the tar paper shacks,it got easier as time went on. Being low man on the totem I did not have the pleasure to meet the warrior you speak of but was very aware of the legacy and tradition dating back to the glider troops.
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Old 06-05-2012, 06:05   #24
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FWIW, in "Band of Brothers" Stephen E. Ambrose described Camp Mackall (named after PVT Tommy Mackall, E-2/509th PIB) as a "marvel of wartime construction," having been converted from 62,000 acres of wilderness to a camp "with 65 miles of paved roads, a 1,200-bed hospital, five movie theaters, six huge beer gardens, a complete all-weather airfield with three 5,000-foot runways, and 1,750 buildings" in just four months.

Imagine trying to accomplish that with today's procurement process.

And so it goes...

Richard
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Old 06-05-2012, 16:37   #25
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You could not get the environmental impact statement completed in 50 years now.

Besides, the red-cockaded woodpecker lives there and we are not allowed to disturb them.

TR
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"It is not the critic who counts; not the man who points out how the strong man stumbles, or where the doer of deeds could have done them better. The credit belongs to the man who is actually in the arena, whose face is marred by dust and sweat and blood; who strives valiantly; who errs, who comes short again and again, because there is no effort without error and shortcoming; but who does actually strive to do the deeds; who knows great enthusiasms, the great devotions; who spends himself in a worthy cause; who at the best knows in the end the triumph of high achievement, and who at the worst, if he fails, at least fails while daring greatly, so that his place shall never be with those cold and timid souls who neither know victory nor defeat." - President Theodore Roosevelt, 1910

De Oppresso Liber 01/20/2025
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Old 04-22-2017, 17:41   #26
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In the spring of 1969, we, (no Dusty, I don't have a mouse in my pocket) would use a hand pump to get water from a well into a barrel mounted on a platform, stand under the barrel and open a spigot for a refreshing shower

Needless to say we were, generally, a stinky bunch.
I went through in early spring of 1970 and don't ever remember taking showers. Maybe I didn't because it was so stinkin' cold.

I do remember volunteering to be a poop mixer behind the latrines on really cold days. That was a whole lot better than standing in the slow lunch line until people would throw blanks in the poo..

I have a hard time visualizing the place after all these years.

Is there a place on here with pictures from long ago??
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Old 06-07-2017, 17:02   #27
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I went through March '84, and they had some corrugated huts, tar paper shacks 2 spigots coming out of the ground, and a pit toilet that had like 8 seats in a circle. Instructors were in a GP. And if I recall correctly, the fence around it had the barbed wire facing in...! Only shower was after survival phase, and was one of those mobile shower units under canvas. Maj Howard was the Camp CO. Remember him on the timed ruck march, would pass us all, stop and watch us go by, then do it again. Tough old bird...
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Old 06-07-2017, 20:08   #28
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FWIW, in "Band of Brothers" Stephen E. Ambrose described Camp Mackall (named after PVT Tommy Mackall, E-2/509th PIB) as a "marvel of wartime construction," having been converted from 62,000 acres of wilderness to a camp "with 65 miles of paved roads, a 1,200-bed hospital, five movie theaters, six huge beer gardens, a complete all-weather airfield with three 5,000-foot runways, and 1,750 buildings" in just four months.

Imagine trying to accomplish that with today's procurement process.

And so it goes...

Richard
Yup, I went to a 509th re union about 16 years ago and many of the WW2 guys were there....they go until they cannot physically go or die.
Pvt. Mackall (Mack al, heavy on the Mack) as they knew how he pronounced it was the first KIA the '09 had on infil in North Africa (as far as they knew I believe).

I've seen most of the changes out there and it is amazing....what they need now is a Camp Mackall section in the SF Museum showing the different phases the place has gone thru...a nice pictorial would be very cool. Someone on Bragg hit Roxanne up with that.
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