Reunion 2007
501st Armored Medical CO
Fulda, Germany
Reunion 2007
Veterans of the 501st meet
again
By JAMES CULLUM
April 19, 2007
www.alextimes.com
Times Staff Photos/Tin Nguyen
LIKE OLD TIMES: From left, Sherman Ragland, Dave Landon, Bill Mahoney and fellow
Cold War veterans relive their days in the late 1950s when they were stationed
as medical corpsmen in eastern West Germany.
At the height of the Cold War, the men of the 14th Armored Cavalry Regiment
stood as a buffer from a Russian attack. The period was 1958-1962. Those
soldiers were expendable. It was estimated they would only hold back the Soviets
for about a half an hour.
And should the world have come to its end, it may have begun there, in Fulda,
Germany.
“We were to do the best we could for a day,” said Dr. William Oppenhimer, 75,
who commanded the 501st, a company attached to the 14th Armored Calvary
Regiment. “We stayed there, truly expecting to be overrun,” he said.
Humanity survived, however, and so did the soldiers of the 501st. The unit was
deactivated in 1964.
Dave Landon served in the company from 1958 to 1960. “I didn’t realize how much
I’d missed them (his Army friends) until I hadn’t seen them for so many years,”
he said.
Two years ago Landon began searching for surviving comrades. A native of
Alexandria, Landon now lives in Charlotte, N.C. He recruited his friend Carlton
Tatum, who had served as an ambulance driver in the 501st. Together they found
Richard Garcia in Suprise, Az.
And then, after a lot of typing and right-clicking and mailing letters, 75
members of the 501st were tracked down.
“These are the most loyal bunch of people I’ve ever seen,” said Landon. “If I
called any of them on the phone and told them to take care of me, look out for
my family or give me money,” Landon snapped his fingers, “It’d be just like
that.”
So, last Friday, for the second time in two years, veterans of the 501st met,
this time in Alexandria’s Old Dominion Boat Club. The men are all a little
grayer, and if, at one time, their personalities were polarizing, 50 years has
softened all blows. There were only friends at this reunion.
In between stories that would make Army guys laugh and ordinary people blankly
stare, Sherman Ragland, said, “The 501st was to support the regiment. We were
located 15 kilometers from the German border, as close to combat as you could
get.”
Ragland commanded the unit from 1960 to 1962. He is now a Medical Corps Service
officer, but said that his tour in Germany was the highlight of his career. “We
were on alert 24/7. There was no holiday, there was no off day.”
Landon said that he was not afraid at this point in his life to tell another man
that he loved him. “I love each and every one of you,” he said to the group of
11. “You guys are very important in my life and I hope we keep doing this until
there are just two people left, when there’s one man standing to say, you know,
it’s been fun. And that’s about it.”
Visit this link for a slideshow of Reunion Photos
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