FORT GEORGE G. MEADE, Md. (May 3, 2012) -- The last time Ernest Fager was at Fort Meade, the installation was a training center for more than 200 units and approximately 3.5 million Soldiers preparing to head to Europe or the South Pacific during World War II.
But last week, Fager celebrated his 90th birthday by returning to his first post with his five children. During the two-day visit, the Fager family toured the installation and the Fort Meade Museum and shared birthday cake with Garrison Commander Col. Edward C. Rothstein.
"Nothing is the same," said Fager, who traveled from his home in Murphysboro, Ill. "I'm going to try to see everything, but there ain't no way you can see it all."
The idea to bring Fager back to Fort Meade started after he wrote about his military experiences so his family could pass down the information to later generations. When reading about his experiences, his children discovered that Fager spent a brief part of his military service at Fort Meade.
"That's when we decided we ought to take Dad back to the first post he went to after Fort Sill [in Oklahoma]," said Maj. Arthur Fager, of the Illinois Army National Guard.
Leaving in the afternoon of April 22, the family made the 850-mile trip from Murphysboro to the installation overnight, arriving at 3 a.m. Their first stop later that afternoon was garrison headquarters for birthday cake with Rothstein.
The family then toured the museum with Fort Meade historian Robert Johnson. While walking through the exhibits, Ernest Fager spotted some equipment he used during his days in the military.
"A lot of this stuff here I've seen and handled," he said.
When stationed at Fort Meade in 1943, Ernest Fager was assigned to the communications section of the 89th Field Artillery, 25th Infantry Division.
The one thing he remembered most from his time on the installation was the good food.
"We didn't have that good of food at Fort Sill," he recalled.
After a few months, he was sent to Camp Stoneman, Calif., and then deployed to the South Pacific theater as a replacement in the Guadalcanal campaign.
"The campaign there was pretty well over, but we'd have a lot of air raids," the former private first class said. "They'd come in with about 110 planes. It was quite a show. I didn't see too much of it because the shrapnel was falling around so we would run into the jungle and get out of that. But you'd still hear the shrapnel falling into the jungle like hail."
During his time with the 25th ID, Fager would move to front lines with officers and a few noncommissioned officers to direct fire. One of his jobs was carrying on his back a radio built for a Jeep.
At the museum, he pointed out a few radios and telephones similar to those he operated.
The following day, Johnson took the family on a driving tour throughout the installation to view historical sites and markings.
Arthur Fager said his family was "blessed" to take the trip and learn more about their father.
"I think all my brothers could agree we had the best role model in the world," Arthur Fager said. "Coming to see the places that shaped him is what makes us proud and makes us a little bit in awe of the things he's seen and done. We just wanted to have a little piece of that."
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