The 1 st Signal Brigade Association membership is open to all those that have served, or are serving with the unit, including related associate membership. Originally this service was primarily in Vietnam and Thailand, and is now headquartered in South Korea. All those meeting these requirements are encouraged to join. A membership application is attached at the end of this newsletter. A list of board members, history and events are readily available on the association website, which includes the most up to date information about association activities. 1 st Signal Brigade Association Purposes and Goals Promote continued comradeship among the past and present members. Preserve historical heritage. Promote and establish activities that enhance the US Army Signal Corps. Provide contributions, grants, and scholarships to further these purposes. Administer funds and property for these purposes. 1 st Signal Brigade Association Charitable Donations As is customary at our reunions, the 1st Signal Brigade Association announces donations to charitable organizations supported by the Army s Signal Corps family and those that support our soldiers. Since 2010, the 1st Signal Brigade Association has contributed over $13,500 to various charitable organizations. At the 2016 Reunion in Branson, Missouri, the Association announced that it will make the following charitable donations: The Hanbit Blind School, on behalf of the 1st Signal Brigade in Korea ($1,500) The Fisher House at Fort Gordon, Georgia ($1,500) From the 1 st Signal Brigade Association Chairman Peter Kind; Distinguished Veterans and Friends, We did it again!!! You ve already seen initial results from our last newsletter and Danny and his team have posted pictures to the web. I d like to emphasize record turnout, superb hospitality room reminiscing, meeting new friends and enjoyable tours. Most important was the camaraderie with people we can talk the same languages with (GI and Army wives) in the hospitality room, at meals 1
and on the great tours in our heartland. Many thanks to our volunteers who planned and participated to make it all go so smoothly. Our first ever survey confirms the enjoyment and gave us feedback for our next reunion in September of 2018. Our Board of Directors is already deep into planning. We will again engage professional hosts to ease the burden on our volunteers so they are free to visit throughout. After investigation of the venues we discussed in our reunion business meeting, we decided to hold Reunion 2018 in San Antonio, Texas. Many members asked for San Antonio. It turned out to be the most reasonable cost of four locations recommended by our professional event planner and validated by board members. It's reasonably central to our membership and has many historic and fun attractions to visit. We have received thank you letters from the 1st Signal Brigade passing our contribution to the Hanbit Orphanage in Korea and from the Fisher House in Fort Gordon Georgia. We help others. Share our camaraderie with your friends. Best wishes in this New Year. Pro patria vigilans. Board Meeting Summary 18 Feb 2017 Membership Report; Association numbers 586 with discussion of up to 500 additional potential members currently chatting in the Yahoo 1 st Sig Bde Group. Web Report; all 50 th reunion photos are posted or in process of being linked for viewing on our website. Newsletter; due to the length of some of the articles submitted the Board decided to allow the newsletter editor to divide a lengthy article over more than one issue and/or posted on the website. This will allow more individual stories to be published. Sales Report; the new shirts with the large logo had arrived and are available for purchase. Sales are relatively slow. Refrigerator magnets with the 2018 Reunion information will be ordered. Association Chapters; no change or potential establishment of Association Chapters. Directors and Officers; no discussion. 50th Anniversary Reunion; we will continue the survey process of the members at each reunion. New Business; a. A motion to hold the 2018 Reunion in San Antonio, TX during the month of September 2018 was made and approved. Several event planners will be contacted with our Request for Proposal pending a selection in the future. b. a 50th Anniversary Magnet will be sent to new members with their membership cards participants early. Next Meeting 2017 meetings scheduled are: 20 May, 19 Aug, 18 Nov 2
2016 Reunion Branson, MO 7 11 September 2016 Host Hotel: Radisson, 120 South Wildwood Drive, Branson, MO 65616 The following article was written by board member Howard Bartholf and published in the magazine On Point, The Journal of Army History, Fall 2015, Vol. 21, No. 2. Since it s a copy of a magazine article, adjust the zoom on your computer if it s too small to read. 3
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March 2017 www.1sba.wildapricot.org Volume 7, Issue 1 7
Recollections & Memories from our Members Note: we have some very good and extensive memories from our members that cover many pages. Starting with the next newsletter, we will vary the authors and post the complete stories on the website. 232 nd SIGNAL CO. (SPT) SEPTEMBER 1964 SEPTEMBER 1965 By Robert L. Stephens Part 5 I recall once not long after I had settled into the routine of the place when one of our operators complained to Musick about working so much. Musick told him he was lucky, that he had worked far harder in the stateside unit he had come from, and I had to agree. Our people working the sites worked a pattern of two days on, changed to two nights on, then had forty eight hours off, so nobody was overworked. I will admit it could get to be a tiring routine but the shifts were actually liked by most of our people. The trips across town took far more out of us than the shifts. Once on the sites there was little actual work to be done except monitor the equipment and the occasional circuit trouble or equipment failure. Of course, the shifts had to be modified because our people were subject to company duties which interfered with the shifts. We had Vietnamese performing KP duty so we did not have to worry about that, but our lower ranking men pulled duty as charge of quarters (CQ) runner, and later as guards. When I first arrived at the battalion we had a set up where most new people went to our guard detachment for thirty or so days of duty with them, the system which had been in use since the battalion had been in Vietnam. Once a newer man replaced them they were sent out to their assigned detachment. Someone must have complained about that system because the inspector general sent down word we could not use it and we had to start a regular guard roster about six weeks after I arrived. That made us all mad, 8
the men because they had to start pulling guard, and the sergeants because it messed up our shifts and because we had to perform sergeant of the guard duties. Later, in early 1965, the battalion got a couple of sergeants to take over sergeant of the guard on a permanent basis so at least we were relieved from that hassle. Once the truck from the shift run returned to the company in the morning the sergeants assigned to the various sites would hang around the hooch for a while. The policy was that we were all supposed to be gone by 0730 but we sometimes were slow moving. Musick had the MACV I site and he usually took the truck during the day, having a guarded place to park it. He would drop me off at JGS and take whoever had MACV II past that site before going to his own. I was lucky that I did not stay assigned to JGS for long because it was a boring place, as I have already stated, and the ARVNs probably thought we were a little stupid having two people at such a site. I walked out one day, getting too bored to put up with the place. I had no intention of walking all the way out the rear gate and having to go all the way around to the front where I could catch a bus. We had orders never to use the front gate but that day I walked out through it, wondering if the ARVN military police would stop me and refuse me exit but they just looked at me as I went out. A hundred yards from the JGS front gate was the American dependent school. Up until early 1965 there were dependents in several areas of Vietnam, officers and higher ranking NCOs assigned to some of the headquarters being allowed to bring their families to the country, in exchange having to stay for two years instead of the one year tour for people who did not have families. There were no family housing areas such as there were in Germany or stateside posts. Instead, the families lived in villas around the city, requiring each one to be guarded. 9
There were also families at Bien Hoa Air Base north of Saigon. To take care of the dependents, there was a consolidated school outside TSN, just across from the JGS main gate. They were in the process in late 1964 of building a gym for the school. There were walls and barbed wire around the school, along with a military policeman at the gate. They may have had another MP inside the grounds but I never knew for sure. I do know the Air Force ran a bus down from Bien Hoa every day, bringing children from that place to the school, with an armed air policeman (AP) riding with them. When the dependents were withdrawn in early 1965, the dependent school was empty at first, soon to be converted to the 3 rd Field Hospital. The day I walked out of JGS I went over in front of the school where I could catch a bus going downtown past MACV I where I planned to get off. I asked the MP on duty if he had seen the bus pass lately but he said he had not noticed, so I stood by the road to wait. At the time, there was a good bus service all over town, run by the Navy, using Vietnamese drivers. In fact, much of what went on in the Saigon area at the time was handled by the Navy under the title U. S. Navy Support Activity, Saigon. They ran the buses, had charge of the Post Exchange, commissary, and they had a hospital downtown, the only American hospital around; the nearest and only Army hospital in the country being the 8 th Field Hospital at Nha Thrang. If any Army personnel had an emergency they could go to the Navy hospital, but for normal hospital requirements an Army person had to take a trip to Nha Trang. The Navy also had a large well equipped 10
dental clinic downtown. The Army had one dental chair at Tan Son Nhut for Army personnel. Army people could pick up their records and go to the Navy clinic on a space available basis but I seldom heard of anyone needing to do so, the result of all dental work having to be up to date before leaving the states. The Navy also had plenty of Freon for air conditioners but we were not in their supply chain and could not get it through them. The bus came by soon and I rode it down to MACV I, it having to make the same around the block circuit we did each day with our truck due to the one way streets. I got off there and walked in, going up to the site where I found Musick. I had told my operator at JGS where I was going in case he needed me, as Musick now told his operator where we were going. Musick took us out to the street and hailed one of the Renault CVs used as taxis and we went down to one of the local restaurants and had a meal and beer. We went back to MACV I and near supper time we took the ¾ ton and returned to the company for supper and the evening personnel relief run. Musick early on also introduced me to the steam bath and massage parlor in Saigon known as The Health Club. There were a number of steam baths and massage parlors in the city but most of them were cheap places which provided different services but never gave good steam baths or massages. The Health Club, on the other hand, was a high class place, frequented by some of the Frenchmen who still lived in the area, as well as upper class Vietnamese men and many foreign nationals. The place had a large weight and exercise room, with a complete assortment of exercise machinery. The steam bath was never 11
hurried, letting us stay in for thirty minutes, sometimes longer, depending how busy they were. The Health Club became the place where we cleaned up, since the showers at the company seldom worked. After the steam bath, we would go into a cold shower, again never being hurried with that. They had some sort of green soap which worked wonders in getting the dirt and sweat off, foaming up good but never leaving a smell. The massages also were not hurried, working out stiff muscles and letting us relax from the constant tension of watching for people who wanted to kill us, as well as the tension of maintaining communications and putting up with people such as SSG Burns, of which more will be said soon. After the company moved into the new compound we would have good hot showers, with an endless supply of hot water and we would not visit The Health Club very often. 12
Vietnam Poetry by Association member Jerry Brooks Medal Of Honor As you put this medal around my neck I still grieve inside What a wonderful thing if you could give it to all who have died. I know it is not possible and you would if you could So, I'm only doing what I think I should. I know you have awarded me this medal for something I have done. Please remember I was not the only one. One Cup of Coffee per Month What is the annual cost of membership to the Association? That would be the same as the cost of twelve cups of coffee. The monthly cost of $1.25 for each cup of coffee equates to $15.00 for the year. Don t you think that being a member of our growing Association is worth the cost of a one cup of coffee each month? Member Publications Images of America Camp Merritt by Howard Bartholf. Soon available at http:// www.arcadiapublishing.com/ A Time of War by Ronald Brian Wheatley http://www.amazon.com/time War Veterans American Massachusetts/dp/1555718140 13
Application for Membership *Regular Membership shall be open to any person who was or is currently assigned to the U.S. Army 1st Signal Brigade. See Bylaws on-line at https://1sba.wildapricot.org/ for veterans who are also eligible for Regular Membership. Associate Membership shall be open to the surviving spouse or child of any person who would have been eligible for Regular Membership and such other persons with some connection to the 1st Signal Brigade as the Board of Directors may from time to time determine. Life Membership shall be open to any person eligible for Regular, or Associate Membership, who pays such one-time dues as may be prescribed from time to time by the Board of Directors. Please select a membership level (based on above descriptions) *Regular - 1 year - $15.00 *Regular - 2 years - $25.00 *Regular - 3 years - $35.00 Associate - 1 year - $10.00 Associate - 2 years - $17.00 Associate - 3 years - $25.00 Life - $250.00 (see above) First Name Middle Initial Last Name Nickname Spouse Spouse s Last Name Email Address Phone Number(s) (h) (c) Address City State Postal Code 14
Military Status (Select one) Active Duty Active Reserves Retired Discharged Civilian Military Unit Please indicate the unit you were or are with, e.g. 459th, 41st Sig Bn Korea, etc. MOS Years Assigned Grade Last Grade Comments: Select the past reunions or events, if any, attended. 1995 Reunion in Washington D.C. (prior to Assn. Inc.) 2000 Reunion in Crystal City, VA (prior to Assn. Inc.) 2004 Reunion in Rosslyn, VA 2006 Reunion in Crystal City, VA 2007 at The Wall in Washington D.C. 2008 Reunion in Augusta/Fort Gordon, GA 2010 Reunion in Tucson, AZ 2012 Reunion in Colorado Springs, CO 2013 Vietnam and Korea Trip 2014 Reunion in Colonial Williamsburg, VA 2016 Reunion in Branson, MO Please mail this form and check or money order in the amount of your membership level (selected above) to: 1st Signal Brigade Association PO Box 562 Aberdeen, SD 57402 Thanks and Welcome, Danny Potts Webmaster 1st Signal Brigade Association Allow 4-6 weeks for processing. If you haven t received your new membership card after 6 weeks please email me at web@1sba.org or call me weekdays from 9am-5pm PST at (916) 220-2072 15