Posted on 04/26/2006 4:56:11 AM PDT by Cannoneer No. 4
| Babenhausen-based artillery unit inactivates By Kevin Dougherty, Stars and Stripes European edition, Wednesday, April 26, 2006
BABENHAUSEN, Germany — The guns of Babenhausen were packed away for good Tuesday, at least ceremoniously. Though the unit won’t inactivate until mid-July, the 1st Armored Division bid adieu to the 1st Battalion, 27th Field Artillery Regiment at a morning ceremony held indoors due to bad weather. Several hundred people attended the event, from young American schoolchildren to local German officials. While the unit’s inactivation represents just one move in a theaterwide effort to downsize and reposition the U.S. Army, the change means something else to the people of Babenhausen. “We are sad the American soldiers are going and that no new Americans are coming anymore,” Reinhard Rupprecht, the city’s Bürgermeister, or mayor, said after the ceremony. “We are losing friends.” For more than 60 years, the people of Babenhausen co-existed with the U.S. military, first as an occupied people then as partners. That partnership saw them through reconstruction, the Cold War, the war in Vietnam and the recent campaigns in Afghanistan and Iraq. It also brought in additional revenues for the city and its residents. Rupprecht estimates that Americans today annually spend well over a half-million dollars in the town of 17,000 people. Babenhausen Kaserne, which is more than 100 years old, will likely be reconfigured for housing and light industrial use, Rupprecht said. The Army has yet to announce when it will turn over the facility to the Germans, though U.S. military officials have said the elementary school on post would close for good in June. In addition to the 1-27, two batteries of the 5th Battalion, 7th Air Defense Artillery Battalion and the 71st Ordnance Battalion are due to depart. Some personnel will remain for a time, but Babenhausen isn’t one of the “enduring communities” the military talks about. Tuesday’s ceremony drew assorted dignitaries, from Rupprecht to Army Maj. Gen. Fred “Doug” Robinson Jr., the 1st Armored Division commander. Two combat streamers were awarded to the unit before its colors were ceremoniously retired. During the ceremony, Robinson lauded the 1-27, noting the support it lent the 101st Airborne Division during the 2003 invasion of Iraq. The battalion also took on added duties after the government collapsed. “Keep your lanyards taut and your powder dry,” Lt. Col. Terry M. Lee, the battalion commander, said in closing. “Until we meet again …” |
Hate to see the de-activation of military units. It's like seeing a family die off.
On the other hand I'm glad to see that we're pulling some of our troops out of Old Europe in general and Germany in particular. It's not that I dislike Germans, it's just that a lot of those bases are nothing more than welfare for Germany.
I mean it's not like we have to worry about thousands of Soviet tanks pouring through the Fulda Gap any more.
L
It is always tough to see this happen. History, lineage and tradition boxed up and put in a warehouse.
That my old base, I ws there in the early 60's. We were the 5 th Battalion, 77th Art. back then. Babenhausen was a great little town and so to nearby Darmstadt and Ashaffenburg (sp). I revisited there a few years ago and much has changed as it again changes.
I lived about 15 k from there from '85-'88 and we shopped there. They had an old guy that had a cart outside the exchange that made fried rice. We rode our bikes over and ate lunch at his cart on weekends. It brings back some great memories.
Ping.
I supervised the crafts shops, photo shops and autocrafts shops in Darmstadt and Babenhausen for a few years in the late 70's. We lived in Darmstadt while my husband served in the 10th Group, ADA.
That's my new favorite word.
I can remember 5/77 cannoncockers arriving at the railhead [at Darmstadt, I believe] in early 1967 to pick up their new M109 155 SP guns. I'm not certain whether they were the first 109s the unit had, of if it was an ordnance upgrade of existing units, but those guys were as happy as kids with a belated Christmas present.
There were some German artillerymen crosstraining with them on the M109 back then, who I later saw go through the Table Eight tank gunnery excercises using their SP guns direct fire against tank targets. *Close enough* does not just apply to horseshoes, hand grenades and German barmaids.
Mine is Schweinfurt, which translates as Pig-Ford (as in river crossing)
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