CLOSING A NIKE SITE

I called around to some people I knew from Korea, and from my days at Xavier University in Cincinnati. I figured out that there was a unit in Wilmington, Ohio, about 30 miles north of Cincinnati. I also heard that one of my classmates, Dick Berg was at that site, so I called his Mom, (I went to grade school, high school, and college with Dick, so I was not a stranger to her), and she gave me his home number. I called his apartment right away, and he was there, having worked ADDCP duty the past 24 hours. Dick said that they had several openings in the ADDCP, but the base was rumored to be closing as the Felicity, Ohio site and the Dillsboro, IN site had been closed already, leaving the unit in Wilmington, the HQ, and a Guard unit in Oxford, Ohio as the only batteries left.

So I called the Adjutant, a Major, in Oakdale, back and asked him to ask General Dean to assign me to Wilmington. He was incredulous and asked why I thought General Dean would change my orders, and I told him that I worked for General Dean when he was CO at the 38^th Brigade, and I was his Asst. Adjutant and flew all over the country with his Annual General Inspection (AGI) team where my job was to inspect the S1 administrative functions that included the morning reports, the filing system, the Unit Fund, personnel records, etc. The Adjutant was very hesitant, but said he would mention it to General Dean. About an hour later, he called with admiration in his voice and said that General Dean said: “Let Lt. Dowd go wherever he wants to go”. So I was assigned to the 88^th Arty Group, a Nike site. Dick Berg called from the ADDCP the next day, laughing about my assignment and wondering how I pulled it off.

That was very sobering, and since I was the only HQ Battery Officer, I also held the property book. Every senior officer warned me as I started checking the property book warned me that I should count everything. By this time it was October, and I think they knew we were closing. So I counted every spoon and fork, and jeep, and my supply sergeant, in turn resigned everything out to the troops who actually used the equipment. In other words, I was signed for the rifles, field jackets, desks, etc, and, in turn, the people that used those items were signed out to me, so I was not liable if they were lost.

My Father was an accountant and I worked for him in college taking factory inventories, so this was not a mystery to me. Unfortunately, the Officer I was getting the property book from, did not due his diligence when he took over the property book the year before, and he was short a whole bunch of stuff, (mostly sheets and blankets), that I would not sign for. He was short 87 blankets, worth about $1200. So this was a problem that he had no answer for, and he was exiting the Army. Items like sheets and blankets can be written off 4 or 5 at a time on a monthly “wear and tear” report, but he never did that, so he had no explanation and no money. Fortunately, he had 47 more field jackets than he was signed for. He had no idea how that happened either, because he had not counted them when he took over the property book. So, I called a good friend of mine in Ft. Bliss, who ran a training battery, and he had plenty of blankets, and had been ordering field jackets for months with nothing coming in. So, we started trading, and as the blankets began rolling in I gained confidence that I could make up the shortage and I let the old Property book officer off the hook. He was relieved beyond words.

I found the biggest issue to be people: everybody was leaving: my First Sergeant left almost immediately and the HQ staff was pulling out so they could be at their next assignment by Thanksgiving, so they could take some time over the holidays at their new location. Most of the RA (Regular Army) Captains and above were really Artillery officers, not ADA officers, so almost all of them went to Ft. Sill. The CO, went to the Minnesota defense as he was getting his Brigadier star in January and needed a year of command time before he went back to the Pentagon, where he had worked in the Officer’s Assignment Branch for 24 out of his 30 years in the Army. He was a great guy and offered me a career in the AG doing what he did, but I couldn’t get by the Vietnam thing. With the wonderful help of the CWO4 Childers, the Personnel Warrant, I figured out all of the people in the command who would be exiting the service in January, February, and March.

Once those guys were gone, the personnel issues were all handled by the CWO Childers, who was going to stay until the end, because he was retiring. This was a big break for me as I was essentially the only Officer on duty from the decommissioning onward. There were Officers around, but they were on their way somewhere else and not working in official capacity other than turning in equipment and closing out their paperwork, which had to be sent to Oakdale if it was classified, or destroyed if not. I had to hand out a couple of Article 15’s to people who were trying to take advantage of the confusion and all of the comings and goings. They were stealing things, mostly small things, from the Day Rooms, and general areas. It made no sense.

A reality was beginning to bubble up in my mind from time to time: In 6 weeks I was going to need a job. I had been so busy up to Christmas, I had done nothing in this regard. So I began writing a resume and by the time I came back from Christmas, I had appointments with the Xavier U. Placement Office in Cincinnati to start my search.

Fortunately, after Christmas, the only major task I had was turning in the remaining furniture, typewriters, and other office equipment . They were the only things left on my property book. The Gates Mills guys made it real easy for me in mid January by taking almost all of the remaining items off my property book because I was losing my clerks to college, and I would soon have only myself and the CWO Childers. So the last week of January until February 15^th, I only worked a 1-2 days a week and I spent most of the time in Cincinnati looking for work. Mr. Childers processed me out of the service, and I processed him out at the same time. I think he went to work for the Engineer Battalion, which was comprised of only about 10 full time active military and a bunch of retired military who were paid as civilians. A lot of them were on radar and missile manufacturers payrolls.

It has been 35 years since all of this occurred, so I did my best to recall the facts as I knew them. I had very little knowledge of what happened at the CD-27 site up the street from HQ and HQ battery as I was not responsible for anything except taking the big stuff onto my property book.