Fort Bragg Stories: Recent Episodes
Gannett
Fort Bragg Stories is a collaboration between The Fayetteville Observer and WUNC’s American Homefront Project to commemorate a century of history at Fort Bragg through personal narratives. If you’d like to share your Fort Bragg story, you can email ftbraggstories@wunc.org.
Jeremy Moore, who was injured in Afghanistan in 2012, said getting a service dog helped him with his recovery.
Military service is the thread that weaves Bobby and Alexia Fields’ family life together. Together, they balance the demands of the Army with the responsibility of raising three young children.
Former Spc. Victoria Landes spent six years as a WAC during the 1960s, training to be a dental assistant at Fort Bragg. While at Fort Bragg, she came to realize she was gay. At that time, being gay could get soldiers discharged.
As a young man in the late 1960’s, Hal Noyes faced the prospect of being drafted to fight in Vietnam. He was opposed to the war, but decided to enlist, hoping to avoid combat.
By 1969, he found himself stationed at Fort Bragg.
Growing up on his family’s farm in southern Alabama, Pfc. Tyler Dunn thought his future lay in agriculture. But he had dreams of serving in the Army.
The story of one troubled Fayetteville veteran helped inspire efforts that will lead to better care for all incarcerated veterans, according to Lynn and Steve Newsom.
Sgt. 1st Class Kelly Rodriguez deployed more than five times in the course of her 21-year military career. Now, her oldest son, Antonio is an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne Division.
Ivan Castro’s life was forever changed when a mortar landed near him in Iraq on Sept. 2, 2006. Two of the men in his unit were killed, and Castro was gravely injured. The attack left him blind, facing a long road to recovery.
Armando Nunez turned to ghost-hunting on a whim in 2008. His wife, Joanna, and a friend, Tom Kuntz, soon joined together and founded the Paranormal Research Organization of Fayetteville, or Proof
Spc. Jonathon Wannemacher is an infantryman in the 82nd Airborne. And he’s also a skilled marksman.
On the morning of Sept. 11, 2001, Shelli Altopp-Miller was at the Main Post Chapel on Fort Bragg for an event hosted by the Protestant Women of the Chapel when dozens of cellphones started ringing.
Steve Newsom and his wife, Lynn, spent five years as co-directors of Quaker House. As a young man growing up in New Jersey, Steve thought he might spend his entire adult career in the military, joining the Navy in 1972.
Mary Ellen Shugart served two tours as an Army nurse in Vietnam during the 1960s and early ‘70s. She treated hundreds of soldiers, but the memory of one young man at Fort Bragg stayed with her through the years.
On Aug. 15, 1945, Bill Reid and 5,000 other GIs packed into a hangar near Naples to see a show starring the iconic singing trio the Andrews Sisters. The show was interrupted by someone carrying a note.
Laura Monk decided a memorial tattoo would be the best way to honor the memory of her husband, Austin. For veteran Lewis Hunt, one of his tattoos honors the dead, but also celebrates those still living.
Maggie Duskin wants to memorialize her husband's life, not his death. The Duskin & Stephens Foundation has raised money to help the families of Special Forces soldiers.
For pyrotechnician Danny Sheckles, Fort Bragg's 4th of July fireworks display is 'a mad rush'
Lt. Col. Frank Miller served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam before retiring to Fayetteville to run a grocery store in the late '60s and early '70s.
Debbie Crain and Laura Lauffer found themselves looking for answers about their fathers' military service.
Daniel Wright says learning the art of tattooing helped him cope with his own Post Traumatic Stress Disorder.
The start of the Iraq War in 2003 divided the country and mobilized a new anti-war movement. Josh Groll was in Middle School at the time.His parents were firmly opposed to the war, but unlike many other anti-war protestors, Josh's dad was on active duty, and his family was stationed at Fort Bragg.
"Our family was, for all intents and purposes, an anti-war family," Groll recalled. "I remember my mother sitting down with me and having some really honest conversations saying, 'We live in this place and we can't be totally upfront with what we think.'"
"I remember being incredibly afraid, almost just as much [of] my dad going off to war, that I would slip up and say something in school and somehow get my dad in trouble."
Groll's father was deployed to Iraq later that year, but what he saw there only strengthened his stance against the war.
"While he's over there, my mom is actually in anti-war activist groups," said Groll. "My dad essentially gave his blessing while he was in Iraq, fighting."
In the era of the Patriot Act and extraordinary rendition, Groll's parents worried their dissenting political views might make it impossible to continue living at Fort Bragg.
Groll's father returned from Iraq unharmed. Despite his opposition to the Iraq war, he remained in the military until retirement. ForGroll, the experience helped shape his political consciousness at an early age.
"Being an anti-war family in the middle of a military base definitely made me think in global terms."
Rapid deployments are a fact of life for soldiers at Fort Bragg. Once notice is given, paratroopers have just 18 hours to prepare to go anywhere in the world.
Bill Wadford was working as an operating room nurse with the 5th MASH unit on the evening December 17th, 1989, when he got the call to deploy as part of the Panama Invasion.
"We were in the process of doing an emergency C-section," Wadford recalled. "The baby was out, the mom was stable, and we were closing. I answered the phone and it was the executive officer of the 5th MASH. His voice was quite tense, and he said, 'Captain Wadford, you are ordered toimmediately report to the warehouse in case we have to move out.'"
"I said, 'Billy, we're right in the middle of the operation right now, I can't leave.' He goes, 'I repeat the order.'"
At home, Wadford had just enough time to pack his rucksack and say goodbye to his wife.
"Her eyes got big as saucers," said Wadford. "I said, 'I can't tell you, trust me, I’ll be fine, watch the news. I don't think I'll be able to call you, but I love you, I love the kids, and I'll see you when I can see you.'"
Hours later Wadford was in the air, headed to Panama as part of a forward surgical team.
Wadford landed back at Green Ramp two weeks later, just in time to wish his wife a Happy New Year.
Joseph Henderson was inspired to use his training as an actor and children's educator to help military children and their families.
He and a team of instructors launched Shakespeare on Base, a free, two-week summer program teaching dancing, art, singing, and, of course, Shakespeare. In 2011, the program served roughly 50 children at Fort Bragg between the ages five to 17. Those with deployed parents gotfirst priority.
At first, Henderson recalled, it was a challenge to get the children to relax and embrace their creativity.
"When they were able to let go, and be free with their expression, and to create, it was an enormous moment in those rooms," he said. "It gave the parents a chance to see their children in a whole new light."
Showcasing the performing arts in a military environment turned out to be, as he put it, "a wonderful marriage" of structure and creativity.
But after Hurricane Matthew hit in 2016, Henderson got a call from the United Way of Cumberland County saying equipment for the program, which was stored in the basement, had been destroyed by flooding. Keyboards, sets and costumes were all ruined. Despite the setback, Henderson hopes to continue the program, and expand it.
"There are over 800 military bases across the world," he said. "I think the very least we could do is two weeks of arts enriched summer camps for kids who are on those bases. I would like to do it again. It's the very, very best I can do."
"I was only in the military six months when the disaster happened," recalled Richard Clapp. He was 19 years old on March 23, 1994, fresh out of basic training and jump school. He'd been at Fort Bragg just three weeks. That afternoon he stood on Green Ramp waiting to make his first official jump with the 82nd Airborne.
He never got the chance. Instead, he lived through the Green Ramp disaster, one of the U.S. military's worst peacetime accidents.
A transport plane collided in mid-air with a fighter jet above Pope Air Force Base. The jet hit the runway and skidded into another plane, sending a giant fireball rolling over the 500 Fort Bragg paratroopers preparing for training jumps.
Twenty-four soldiers died and more than 100 were injured.
Clapp was burned on 45 percent of his body. He underwent more than a dozen surgeries and months of physical therapy before medically retiring from the Army a few years later.
Last year, fellow veterans offered Clapp the chance to make the jump he missed. He traveled to the National Parachute Test Center in Florida, where, after a brief refresher course, he went up in a World War II era plane to make a series of military-style slack line jumps.
"It was amazing to jump out of an aircraft that had actually dropped paratroopers in WWII," said Clapp. "I felt exhilaration again. I felt like redemption."
And the landing, he said, was perfect. "Even though I hadn't done that in 20 years, itwas still there."
For 16 years, Lenore Yarger and Steve Woolford have answered the phone at the G.I. Rights hotline, a number military service members can call for free and confidential counseling on benefits, regulations, discharges, grievances, and what it means to be a conscientious objector. The hotline is sponsored in part by Fayetteville's Quaker House, which has been advocating for peace since 1969.
Yarger said she and her husband came to the hotline as peace activists, initially knowing little about military life.
"We knew of soldiers on the other side of the fence, during protests or different demonstrations we had been a part of," said Yarger. "So this work just gave us an incredible opportunity to actually get to know soldiers and what they go through, to hear their stories and to have a personal relationship with them. On that level this work has been extremely rewarding."
Along with other hotline workers, the couple fields calls from all over the world. Some come from service members who have had a change of heart and find themselves morally opposed to war. Yarger and Woolford coach them through the lengthy process of gaining an honorable discharge from the military.
"We don't always win," said Woolford. "And that's hard in cases where I think we're completely right, so sometimes it does feel just heartbreaking."
The most fulfilling part of their work, he said, is helping soldiers find their voice.
"A lot of people think they're stuck in a situation and just don't realize the options they have."
When Tom McCollum transitioned from the 82nd Airborne to Special Forces, he knew the training would be tough.
The Special Forces Qualification Course, or Q Course, can take up to two years to complete, depending on a soldier's area of expertise. As a former company commander with ample leadership experience, McCollum was ready for the challenge. Still, he found himself struggling to adapt to a new role.
"All of a sudden, I found myself in SERE school, where I was the senior ranking officer, but no matter what I said, no matter what I did, was wrong," said McCollum.
SERE school, focusing on survival, evasion, resistance and escape, teaches soldiers what to expect if they become prisoners of war. Students must try to keep their wits during grueling mock interrogations designed to test their resolve.
"I had gone from a position where people looked to me for guidance, where I was taking care of them, to people looking at me hoping I wouldn't say anything, said McCollum. "It was a complete shock and reversal from everything I was used to. I remember I had a hard time dealing with that."
The experience forced him to see himself in a new light. McCollum said it was the biggest mental challenge he faced in his Army career.
"I think that was a good thing. At the time I wouldn't have said that was a good thing, but it's one of those lessons that you learn that dawns on you years later."
Master Sgt. Judy Betancourt found her calling in the military.
A self-described female warrior, she’s served 24 years in the Army and has deployed overseas six times.
But the job she loves has come at a personal cost.
Her decision to remain on active duty after the birth of her son has meant months and years away from him.
“Being away from my son has definitely been a stressor,” Betancourt said.
One way she copes with that separation is to look for aspects of her own child in the young men and women who report to her.
“These soldiers are my children, and I’m their surrogate parent, and I have a responsibility not only to them, but to their own parents,” Betancourt said.
“Their parents trusted us to take care of them, so I’m going to take care of them and teach them all I know as they maneuver and go to different places in the Army.”
“That’s what has helped keep me focused on the mission and dealing with the struggles of being away from my child.”
Betancourt has come to cherish her role as a mentor to young soldiers.
“Maybe that’s my legacy in the military, ” she said.
“So, if I die, my essence, and my knowledge base, and leadership skills can be passed on to other generations of non-commissioned officers and leaders.”
Her son, Christian, now 14, is following in his mother’s footsteps, pursuing a future in the military through his high school’s Junior Reserve Officers’ Training Corps program.
Before coming to Fort Bragg in 2016, Phil Sussman fractured his spine in a training accident.
It was an injury he feared would end his military career.
“The pain was hands down the worst thing I’ve ever felt in my life, I can’t even describe it,” Sussman said. “I couldn’t move, couldn’t roll over. It would bring my wife to tears every time she’d try to move me.”
Sussman was determined to continue his course of rigorous training.
His physical therapist, a former Green Beret, gave his blessing.
“He said, ‘If you can take the pain, then go forward.’”
Sussman kept pushing and resumed training, but his wife saw the effort taking a toll.
She urged him to try yoga to manage his chronic pain.
“She’d been doing yoga for about a dozen years, but I always brushed it off as something for girls,” Sussman said. After just one class, he was hooked.
A combination of yoga, meditation and therapy helped ease his pain and battle his depression.
“As soldiers, we’re conditioned to just keep driving forward,” said Sussman. “And I realized through my meditation practice and through yoga that I was finding peace in the present, but I was looking around me and saw so many soldiers still struggling.”
Sussman resolved to share his experience, launching a clothing line designed to make men more comfortable in the yoga studio. He encourages fellow soldiers to see yoga as a path to healing.
“It’s OK to reach out for help. We understand.”
Patrick Railey was 9 years old in 1970 when his father died in Vietnam.
Chief Warrant Officer 4 George Railey died two days after the Railey family arrived in Fayetteville.
Patrick, his sister and his mother had moved from Orlando to their new house near Fort Bragg.
“I remember the scene of a military vehicle pulling up, well-dressed soldiers getting out and coming up to the house,” Railey recalled.
“You always knew that was bad news. You didn’t want that to be your family.”
“It was a traumatic thing,” said Railey. “You just knew that your life wasn’t going to be the same after that.”
As a widow raising two children, Railey’s mother, Christina, had to find a way to support her family.
Kenisha Wilkerson was drawn to military service, despite some initial uncertainty.
“I was a little confused at first,” said Wilkerson. “I was going back and forth, like, ‘Uh, I might not be built for the Army.’ But I knew I wanted to serve.”
Growing up as the daughter of a veteran, Wilkerson saw firsthand how military service could provide a steady paycheck, educational opportunities and a dependable pension.
Now a 29-year-old captain, she values the sense of stability, self-sufficiency and purpose the Army has brought to her life.
“I like being able to give back,” she said. “It may not be directly to every individual citizen, but I feel like I’m a part of something that’s greater.”
But she also feels the stress it puts on her family, separating her, at times, from those she loves most.
“I was deployed, and my great grandmother passed away, and I wasn’t allowed to come back,” Wilkerson said. “There’s guilt that comes with not being there for your family when they need you.”
Looking ahead to the next chapter of her life, she’s weighing how her commitment to the Army fits into her future.
Wilkerson hopes to serve another 14 years but says she’ll have to step away if it comes at the expense of her family life.
“I don’t want to go twenty years, retire, and I have nobody to my right and my left because I’ve neglected them by constantly putting the Army needs in front of my personal needs. My healing is my family.”
Libby Brice was 20 years old in 1961 when she got a job on post as a secretary for the Criminal Investigation Division, one of only three women in the unit.
Billy Herring was 7 years old when his family moved on to Fort Bragg in 1939, one of three civilian families on post at the time.
Lorie Southerland didn’t know the Fort Bragg Fisher House existed until she needed it. Her son, Michael, had just been killed in Iraq, and her out-of-town family needed somewhere to stay for his memorial service. Fisher House opened its doors, as it has for hundreds of other military families, offering respite when loved ones come to Fort Bragg for medical treatment, or to mourn.
As a young lieutenant in 1969, Fred Black was one of several African-American officers at Fort Bragg. He said racial tensions rarely came to a head on post, but black soldiers faced discrimination in the wider community.
Mike Thomas was a young captain in the summer of 1990 when he got orders to deploy to Saudi Arabia as part of Operation Desert Shield. After spending nine months in the Gulf, he recalled an emotional journey flying back to Fort Bragg.