News

31 Jan 2017
GreetingsT3 Folks -
Loss of DMSr - Celebrating Valentine Day DMS Style

The sad first. I was notified by LICS Bill Portt about the loss of one of our own. Bill mentioned that MSG Jerry Watson had passed away several weeks earlier. I was not able to locate an obituary on Jerry. If anyone knows of one please let me know. I was however able to locate a number and talked with his daughter in-law. She was reluctant to give me any information other than we lost him because of scam artists.   My last memory of Jerry was around 1982 when he fell victim to our prank about Captain Tuttle being in TSD and Jerry came up to meet him. I was told Jerry was in Lusby, Maryland. He worked in OPS if I remember correctly in the early 80s. Thanks Bill for letting us know.

Also learned of a couple Agency death’s. Obits will be sent to whoever asks for them. Dr Jack Rinker and Mr. Glen Mulkey.   I personally don’t recall either of them but none the less they were family and will be missed.

Ok - a day early for Valentine’s Day - February 13th is our next get-together. It will be for dinner around 1830-1900 hours or so. Same place, China King in Woodbridge across from Olive Garden on Opitz Blvd. It’s always great to see old friends.

Our last luncheon was super. We were visited by who I believe is our oldest living student. Allen Anderson, an Agency HOFr, graced us with his presence. He only stayed for a while and after he was gone I cussed myself out for not taking a photo of him. Allen was a student at the old Enlisted Men’s School at Fort Belvoir from September 1946 to December 1946. The name of the course was the Phototopography Course and it was twelve weeks long. I’ve told the story before of how I got to meet him. In a nut shell when I worked in OPS in 2003 or so I was tasked for setting up a tour for Mr. Anderson at the schoolhouse. My interest was fully non-existent until I talked to him and found out when he was a student. At that time I was considered one of the old timers at the school. I was shocked to find out Allen was a student there when I was born in November of ’46. My old story continued with what could be the odds of meeting someone that was a student when I was born considering at the time I was the longest tenured gent there. Allen then shocked me by asking if he could bring one of his classmates which he did.    I met them both and I immediately took a fond liking of both of them. They both donated maps they had from their tour at the school. The maps were professionally framed, dedicated and hung on the wall at Bagley. One of them was a Fort Belvoir map actually printed by one of our students back then. Anyone know what happened to the maps? I know where Allen and his friend Herb are but lost track of their donations when the school moved. They were awesome! (Allen and Herb and the maps!!) Anyway at our lunch on January 9th Allen brought a copy of his course itinerary from 1946. If it’s not attached now I messed up again.   Ah, just did it. Interesting subject material. What I thought was really cool was that Phototopography was an accepted term back then. When I typed it out now spell check rejected it.   But like I tell folks I’m used to being rejected - I’m married. (poor woman)

Also at our luncheon besides Allen Anderson and myself were SGM Bill and Mrs (Pearl) McCray, Russ and Tonya Cavender, Virgil and Young Tarry, Lylton Jackson, John Jens and my super vet Gene Tatum. I apologize to all that have attended the past half dozen get-togethers for not sending photos to Ray Chapman for our www.belvoirdms.org web site. If you want excuses I have a good amount but unfulfilled procrastination is the biggest culprit. The thing about retirement that is so great is that you can always do it tomorrow but sometimes tomorrow never makes it. Apologies big time to Harold Hester, our original web site guru for not forwarding things to Ray for the site. My desk top computer, which I am on now, gives me a lot of fits to the point that I hate getting on it. Sending out my hot air via email to you folks is my biggest reason for waiting it out to boot up. I don’t know the origin of the application of boot in reference to computers but sometimes I would really want to boot it. My fault - I have way too much on my desk top and way too many photos on the hard drive. I think the last time I ran a computer generated count of the photos it was over twenty-five thousand.    I miss negatives and hard copy prints. I also miss DOS and Windows 3.1. Thought I would miss MultiMate but I have gotten over that one. Thanks Ray!

Gina Lynch sent some recent photos of what used to be DeWitt Army Hospital. I attached one. I’ll send the rest to Ray for the site. Thanks Gina.    Fort Belvoir is getting almost hard to recognize. So far our campus is in intact. If you haven’t seen it for a long time please visit our site for a more modern day tour I did several years ago.

In my personal life I did something completely out of my wheelhouse so to speak. I bought a Ford. A four year old F-150. I had to retire my 18 year old Dakota. The one thing not up to date in Spotsylvania where I live is adequate snow removal so because of the two or three days a year that I feel snowed in I had to buy a twenty-eight thousand dollar truck. Made sense to me.   On the other hand I did something this past weekend that those of your that knew me years ago will find more expected. At my flea market set up I traded six vintage baseball cards for a Volkswagen bug. Sound more like me? Comments from my wife are not considered printable for this medium. Actually basically all she did was shake her head in disbelief which more than likely is what some of you are doing right now. Oh - three Mickey Mantle’s (55, 64 add 68), a Paul Waner (1935), a Walter Johnson (1912) and a Nap Lajoie (1915). The VDub needs a bit of work but not much. My sanity continues to need examining.

Once again thanks for making it this far down the page. Remember that our lunches and dinners the only prerequisite for attending is being able to spell the word MAP and that I don’t take off for spelling. Hope that if it is within the area of your travel limitations that you come and have a good time.

Sure I forgot something - please if you know anything about anyone that graced our campus or even news about yourself please send it. And also please check out the toils of our DMS website created by Harold Hester and Ray Chapman - www.belvoirdms.org - thanks!!

                                                                                                                                                                Jack 540-846-5413