Greens involved with Fort Sill ceremony

FORT SILL, Okla. " Peggy was 10-years-old when he father, Chief Warrant Officer Ivan Green, was killed in Vietnam in 1969. Because her father was deployed a lot, she does not have a lot of memories of him, but she does remember one of his cooking tips.

“He taught me how to peel potatoes.You had to peel them very, very thin,” said Peggy Bryant of Del City, Okla. Her brother Dennis was 9.

He remembered how he and his sister would pull off their dad’s combat boots after work as he sat in an easy chair at their Lawton home.

Peggy, Dennis and their mother, Nancy, were among 10 members of the Green family who attended the rededication of the CWO2 Ivan I. Green Hall Dining Facility Monday at Fort Sill.

“It is a big honor because he was a Vietnam veteran, and the way those veterans were treated [badly] at the time,” said Bryant.

Green Hall DFAC was originally dedicated in 1983. Major renovations began in February 2009, and after work was completed June 1, the Green family was invited to the reopening. The DFAC serves newly inducted Soldiers at the 95th Adjutant General Battalion (Reception), 434th Field Artillery Brigade.

Green began his career at Fort Sill as an enlisted Soldier at the Field Artillery Training Center. As a food service technician, Green developed an extensive historywith the artillery center’s dining facilities. He was 33 when he was killed in a helicopter crash April 8, 1969, during his second tour in Vietnam.The chief’s decorations include a Bronze Star for Meritorious Achievement in ground operations in Vietnam.

In his invocation, Chaplain (Capt.) Daniel Claypoole, 1st Battalion, 79th Field Artillery, said, “Lord God we dedicate this dining facility to you. We dedicate the Soldiers, the civilians, the cadre who will be sustained here, to you. Bless the hands who prepare the meals and us, who eat here.”

Speaker Col. Raymond Lacey, Fort Sill Garrison commander, said the Green Hall DFAC has serviced tens of thousands who arrived here as volunteers and left as Soldiers.

“I know Chief Green is looking down upon us and this ceremony with proud eyes,” Lacey said. “Forty-three years later, we continue to honor Chief Green’s memory as a food service warrant officer with this rededication.”

The 20-month, $600,000 renovation included an expanded seating capacity area, an improved traffic flow for diners in serving lines, more open space for diners, an upgraded beverage service area, a new ceiling and air conditioning, said Mark Ortmann, Directorate of Logistics supervisory food service specialist. The facility can serve about 660 Soldiers per meal.

The DFAC, along with the 95th AG, is one of the first experiences of the Army for new trainees, Ortmann added.

Afterward, the Green family, friends, guests and Soldiers, were joined by Maj. Gen. David Halverson, Fires Center of Excellence and Fort Sill commanding general, and given a tour of the DFAC.