FORT SILL, Okla. -- One of Fort Sill's artillerymen from six decades ago visited his old duty station May 12, and we at the Tribune got a little taste of what life was like in our building when it was basic officer quarters.
Raymond Jess, known as RC by his friends, walked up the stairs of the Dental Activity-Fort Sill headquarters building with what looked like an air of confidence, and stopped in at our office.
"I was assigned Room 212 upstairs," he said, "and have a lot of fond memories of the days spent in this old building."
He noted there was no carpet or air conditioning in the building at that time. The floor downstairs was marble and upstairs it was hardwood.
"There was almost always a party in the last three rooms upstairs, my room being one of them," Jess said. At the time Oklahoma was a dry state and the closest place to get liquor was Burkburnett, Texas. "Some of us didn't feel like driving all the way down there so we would just find a local bootlegger."
Jess entered the U.S. Military Academy at West Point in 1948 and graduated as a second lieutenant four years later with an engineering degree. His first duty station was Fort Hood, Texas where he deactivated a battalion before being shipped off for a two-year rotation in Korea.
In 1954, Jess returned stateside and was assigned to Fort Sill's C Battery, 6th Armored Battalion, while he was prepped for the Field Artillery Surface to Surface Missile Battery Officer's Course.
Jess returned to watch a live fire, like the ones his unit did decades ago.
A lot of the buildings and other landmarks we see on Fort Sill were not around when he was assigned here.
"It seems like the base just keeps growing, much like everything else," he said. "Progress happens."
Still working, the 86-year-old Jess is a cardiovascular rehabilitation specialist at St. Luke's Brazosport Regional Health System near Houston.
On a post that has processed through hundreds of thousands of Soldiers in the decades since Jess was here, it's likely few know of or remember him. Yet, he is a man who walked into our office with self-confidence recalling events and aspects of his time at Fort Sill that intrigued the newspaper staff.
Though his time here was brief, he went on to touch many people in a very positive way. Jess and a thousand others like him should not be forgotten, they are the fabric that wove us together to make this Army what it is today.
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