Pictures from the July 2009 Reunion!

There is a wealth of pictures from the Reunion in B.K. and Fulda.  Our thanks to the comrades who provided the shots!.  They are broken down by the contributing photographer.

April 8, 2009

Many of you have emailed me about problems with "bogus" entries in the guest book.  I want to thank all of you for the heads up.  I think we have the problem under control for the moment.  It seems that someone had a program that made the entries automatically, thereby taking up space in the guest book and making it generally miserable for those who wanted to read the entries to find old friends.  ALSO, I have rearranged the guest book so that it starts with the newest entries.  I will shortly build another version that will sort the entries by last name to make it easier to find names of friends. 

Mini-Update: July 5, 2008

Registration Form for the next Border Legion Reunion - Fulda, Bad Kissingen and Bad Hersfeld - 24 - 28 June 2009: http://www.blackhorse.com/FuldaReunion.pdf

Doug Brendel has provided us with a link to an excellent video that shows Daley Barracks and the last Squadron FTX: http://www.donet.com/~mbrendel/DB/movie.html

Feb 2008 Update

Es geht wieder los!! Can you believe it, just about the time you have the Visa and MasterCard bills finally paid off from the previous 11th ACR reunion at Fulda - Hersfeld and Bad Kissingen the next one is already in the planning stages. Here is some preliminary information and points of contact. As usual, you can expect a professionally organized excursion to the old stomping grounds - much fun, more Bier and lots of memories.

www.blackhorse.com

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Once upon a time, in a galaxy far, far away . . . .

Some shots of the former location of OP Sierra.

Even though there has been a long period between updates, research has continued as we explore the history of the border cavalry in the Rhoen and some of the stories associated with the Americans coming to Bad Kissingen.

• A new set of images showing the RAD Lager at the town of Leubach near Fladungen has been added to update the RAD in the Rhoen Hidden Story.
   
• A small set of images showing Bad Kissingen in the mid 1930s has been added here and a rare set of images showing the Victory Parade staged by the 7th Reconnaissance Regiment, part of the 2 Leichte Division, as they returned to Meiningen is here. These are the companion images to the victory parade in Bad Kissingen series.
   
• Rudolf Haen was a high decorated Wehrmacht Panzer officer who was captured in the last days of the war near Bad Kissingen. His career is well documented, the mystery is how did he come to die on the last day of the war? Please review you PW handling card and check out To Die with the Coming of Peace.
   
• Merle Addison Potter is the most famous person you have never heard of. He was a newspaper man who knew the top movie stars of the day, ran dozens of contests and promotions, entertained thousands of people and was the first American military governor of Bad Kissingen in the early Summer of 1945. Ohh, by the way, he got fired, got promoted and founded what would become the German - American Friendship Clubs that exist to this day. Open a beer and let’s give Merle some long deserved credit, Merle A. Potter, the Man who Invented Friendship.
   
• Dashing forward to the 1960s, we often forget how many units across the parade field passed through Daley Barracks. Here is a shout - out and a tip of the beret to A Company 36^th Engineers ( combat ) who had a Brief Stay in BK.
   
• All those things that hang on the wall or haunt the attic, Border Certificates and the Order of the Spur … the story is only partially told at Wall Stuff . We could really use your help with more images and recollections recalling the evolution of these cavalry traditions at Daley Barracks. Who were the first troopers to get such commemoratives and who, indeed, was the last man awarded an Eaglehorse Border Certificate?
   
• We have added thirty - five more photos from Tom Quinn’s great collection showing life in H Company in the mid and late 1970s. Stand by for berets, M60A1 tanks and plenty of party pix!

In other interesting news, The German paint ball club that had been using parts of the former Camp Lee as their play ground has moved on and the camp is still for sale. The older, temporary structures of the barracks buildings, arms room and motor shop are all now is serious disrepair and clearly are well past saving. As a blight to the property, it is only a matter of time before they will be removed. The “ newer “ structures, mess hall, border operations center and aid station - administration building were spared paint ball wars and appear to be functionally intact. The Grenztafel that members of the previous reunion placed outside of the border camp is long gone. Hopefully it hangs in someone’s basement bar or garage.

A German historical project is underway to make a TV production recalling the rich history of the Wildflecken Training Area. Some of the images from this web site will be incorporated into the production and we are pleased to help out. I will be trying to contact a few of you to get true - photo reprints of your WTA images. The digital images we use on the site do not transfer well to TV, they really need a big file scan or true photograph to work from. Hope you do not mind dragging the pix out of the basement one more time.

Looking forward - we will try and update every three months and will relentlessly beat the drum for the reunion. Stories under development:

• Bad Kissingen and the U.S. Army’s hunt for Nazi technology
   
• who were the first Americans to patrol the border in the Rhoen
   
• a few moments with the East German border police in the early 1950s
   
• one day, you get the bear and the next day … well … a confused shoot out in the fog and dark near Bad Kissingen … you lose a leg and win the Silver Star.

We will be reformatting certain pages to update the look of the site and possibly stream lining the photo data base and message board. If you patrol the site and find bad links and dead clicks, please let us know.

For what it’s worth, the e mail address list is badly out of date, if you want to be notified of updates in this site, please send in your address.

As usual, begging for pix and info related to Daley, the Cav and BK. There are a lot of stories related to the Eaglehorse and the Army at Bad Kissingen that simply do not get researched due to difficulty in finding former troopers willing to tell their stories or send their images. This is particularly true for the mid 1980s going forward.

Bob Stefanowicz / Randy Mitchell