Fort Ord, CA – Fort McClellan, AL - Hanau Germany- Remembered
In the late 1970s I (Robert W. Busby) finished a three-year tour of duty
as a United States Army Criminal Investigation Division Command (CID) Special
Agent (SA) serving as a Specialist Sixth Class (SP6) at Fort Ord District CID
office located adjacent to Seaside and Monterey California. My new assignment would
be the CID Resident Agency (RA) in Hanau, Germany, however I had to attend the
Senior Noncommissioned Officer Advanced Course (NCOA) #3B at Fort McClellan, AL
before going to my new duty station at Hanau.
This change in my travel plans was not easy or fun since my wife Military
Police (MP) Woman SP4 Christy Lynn Busby had orders to arrive at Hanau to serve
in the Hanau Military Police the same time as my previous travel plans.
Christy and I were a US Army Military married couple, she served as an MP
while I served as an MP/CID. As long as neither of us were in the same chain of
command we had no problems being married to each other.
Christy traveled from her MP unit at Fort Ord, CA to Hanau without me
while I traveled to Fort McClellan, AL to attend the three-month long NCOA
course.
The Army wanted all its SP6s trained when it came time for them to be
promoted to SP7 or Sergeant First Class.
My NCOA class of twenty-five consisted of Military Occupational
Specialties (MOSs) SP6 95Ds – Criminal Investigators, SP6 95Cs – Correctional
Specialist and Staff Sergeant’s (SSG) 95B – Military Police.
The NCOA course in the 1970s and 1980s prepared select NCOs for greater
responsibilities in leadership and management. The curriculum was designed to
meet senior NCO needs, which consisted of lectures, small group seminars,
physical training, and field training, at the MP Senior NCO level for the first
four weeks. At the start of the fifth week through the eleventh week the 95Ds/95Cs/95Bs
moved to their individual MP/CID MOSs training modules since each career field
had different types of specialized training.
One hitch involving my training was having to take a one week brake (eleventh week) from the
training academy and fly from Fort McClellan, AL back to Fort Ord, CA for five
days since I was ordered to testify at a General Court Marshal. The court
martial pertained to some fifteen soldiers who were detained by CID for
possession and sale of drugs. Yep, before I left Fort Ord, I spent time running
the Drug Suppression Team (DST).
Several months before I left Fort Ord for NCOA training my DST team of
two SAs and two MP Investigators (MPI) worked in a semi-undercover drug
operation at Fort Hunter Liggett, CA resulting in numerous soldiers being
detained.
The NCOA folks were not happy but since my skills and abilities were
adequate for the NCOA modules and it worked out I did not miss any evaluations
or test; I graduated with my fellow students.
The twelfth week of NCOA training all the MP/CID folks returned to the
same training module and graduated together and then headed back to their
individual MP/CID units.
My trip from Fort McClellan, AL to Hanau, Germany was long and when I
arrived at Frankfurt International Airport in Germany I was drained and still
had a long drive to Hanau.
When I arrived in Hanau, I met up with my wife Christy who had a room at
the Hanau Officers Club, apparently my fellow CID folks took care of Christy
getting her and me a room there. We were only able to stay another week since
neither of us were officers.
Chris was working as an MP Desk Clerk at the Hanau MP Station and I was
working in the same building at the CID office. Housing for two enlisted
married soldiers is not and was not easy to find, so we ended up staying in a
German Hotel not far from Pioneer Kaserne, the US Army Military Poste the
MP/CID station was located on.
I have written many stories about Ord, McClellan, Hanau, yall just have
to find them to enjoy them.
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