How many of you remember the Gold Fire military exercises which took place in Lebanon and surrounding counties in the fall of 1964? Sometimes vague memories like this just kind of creep out of the mists of my memory from time to time. I don’t know what triggered it this time, but I was curious enough to follow through with some research.
I went to the Facebook group page which houses a lot of school and area memories because it is written by Lebanon school alumni who are close to my age. I brought up the subject there, and thought I would share some of their memories with you in this column. Milan and I lived in a little house on North Adams and occasionally would see one of the soldiers running through the yard but apparently they were much more visible out in the county.
Gold Fire was a simulated battle exercise between the Ozark and Sioux forces during U.S. Strike Command’s Joint Exercise held in Southern Missouri in November 1964. It appears from the comments I have received that the soldiers were everywhere in the area, including Falcon, Competition, Eldridge, Phillipsburg, etc, and there are still concerns about “dumpings” of chemicals, and rumors of people in these areas developing extreme cases of cancer over the years.
Macky Myers witnessed 2 battles off Highway 32 between Detherage and Rippy Schools. Planes were dropping what appeared to be sacks of flour onto trucks. Soldiers were scattered all up and down the river between Hazelgreen and Falcon. In another battle, a machine gun unit attacked a convoy headed toward Hazelgreen from the Crossroads area. He said the soldiers gave his brothers a huge stash of chocolate and cheese rations.
Ross Malone remembers how he and his dad had recently planted 1000 walnut trees as a financial investment. Since they were just twigs with roots, not even saplings yet, the Goldfire troops and vehicles moved across their land and destroyed them all. They were not considered to have monetary value, but the soldiers repaired their fences.
Mike Kelly remembered convoys on I-44 that were miles long. He tells of being photographed in a strobe light in his back yard about 11 p.m. one night. He also remembers F-100 Super Sabers dog fighting over Lebanon one Saturday afternoon. He said the exercise was a warm-up for Viet Nam, and one of the earliest appearances of the M-16 rifle, then called the Armalite AR-15. He also remembers seeing lots of soldiers at the Star Theatre. Three years later he was in basic training at Fort Dix, NJ.
Kathy Murphy Capps remembers going out North 5 to what was the Kinder Esther farm at the time. Lester Capps said the soldiers were back in the woods from Dove down to Eldridge on the Esther’s property as well as other’s. She remembers the bombs and talk of war as being frightening to her because it hadn’t been all that long since the Cuban Missile Crisis.
Gayle Dotson Crancer remembers a convoy being stalled in front of their home in Lebanon as they headed back to I-44. She and her siblings were playing in the yard and one of the soldiers asked them to fill his canteen. They dragged the garden hose down to the road to fill the canteens. Their school group was invited to the Fort to ride jeeps and look at equipment. She climbed in a tank and got to sight the gun on a target. She and Violet Meads got to wear helmets.
Haven Miller drove with his dad, who was editor of the Lebanon paper, to one of the large encampments in the woods north of Lebanon. There were dozens of tents and jeeps and soldiers everywhere. He remembers an army helicopter and other equipment on display at Maplecrest Park. The pilot offered to take him up for a ride but his dad refused to sign the release since he didn’t think it was wise. He still remembers the disappointment.
Verna Sherrer was a first grader at Liberty School. Her teacher was Leola Gilliam. The soldiers were camped not too far from the school in the woods and the teachers and students would walk down to talk to them. She remembers the soldiers showing them their rations and some of the boys got spent shell casings.
Dayton Massey said some of them took showers in the field house. The aggressors were the Circle Trigon Party. Their emblem was a black circle with a T in the middle.
David Atkinson tells of being with his dad and witnessing a small battle near the corner of Highway B and what is now Falcon Road. One of the “companies” had a base camp in that area that they were defending. As a young boy he found it very exciting to search for anything left behind, such as C-rations, fake grenades, spent shell casings of blanks. One of his friends even found a gas mask.
Kerry Scott remembers the soldiers being on his grandfather’s farm and the excitement of finding rations, shell casings and an unused smoke grenade, which he wasn’t allowed to set off!
One of Lebanon’s beautiful eligible women of that time had a couple of dates with one of the soldiers, but when he failed to show up on time one evening, she called the telephone number he had given her and it rang into his home where his wife answered. She said she never saw him again. I’m thinking he might have asked for an early deployment to a country far away!
I hope these reminiscences bring back some memories you have long forgotten. I’ve always considered it a blessing to live in Lebanon and I love to share these stories with people too young to remember or not as blessed to grow up here as I was.
© Joan Rowden Hart c.1964
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