79th Engineer Battalion History 1970 - 1971 By: Colonel Eugene J. Stokes Battalion Commander It's been just about 30 years since I relinquished command of the 79th Engr Bn but many of my memories of that period are quite clear. In June 1970, I assumed command of a sister battalion, the 94th in Nelligen. There we experienced severe racial discord which led to some riots (not dissimilar to events occurring widely in the civilian sector in the US) and ultimately led to my re-assignment to the 79th Bn and the former CO of the 79th going to the 94th. This switch in commanders occurred in Sept 1970 and I remained with the 79th until rotation to CONUS in Dec 1971. The 79th was then based at Neu Ulm and we enjoyed constructing a wide variety of small projects throughout Germany. I can recall some of them, like a tank range at Grafenwohr, a pre-fab school classroom in Bonn, a ski lift at Berchtesgarten, the clean-up of the famous Casa Carioca Night Club-on-Ice in Garmisch after it had been destoyed by fire, a paving project at an airbase outside of Ankara, Turkey (we airlifted a platoon-sized unit with all equipment for that one). We squeezed in some field manuever training but mainly were very busy building things. The troops were reasonably happy, I guess, because they were busy but there was a strong under-current of unrest throughout the Army due to racial and drug problems and the strong anti-war, anti-government attitudes which were prevalent amongst most of the younger (18-25) US population. In about June 1971, the 79th was ordered to relocate from Neu Ulm to Karlsruhe. This was a major task, not in moving the TO&E Bn but because of all the families which had to be up-rooted from their quarters at one time and get them re-settled in Karlsruhe. It caused a lot of disruption in normal activities but in a couple of months we were back in the groove at Karlsruhe. As an aside from this little history sketch, my family and I were visited by my niece from Florida, a new school teacher back home. Anyway, I brought her to a Battalion officers' party at the club in Karlsuhe and introduced her to the group. One of the officers, then Lt Rich Donoghue, latched unto her and they were subsequently married- and still are! They now have two sons in their mid-twenties and Richard recently retired as a full colonel. I look back upon my time with the 79thBn with great fondness because of the fine officers and NCO's who performed so very well. However, it was a time of great upheaval in the Army. Time-tested concepts of chain-of-command were strained as we sought to deal with problems of race relations and drug abuse. We, the unit leaders, had virtually no real in-sights how to deal with these twin scourges; we simply adapted as best we could. It was a difficult time for the Army and the USA. We (my wife Kathe and my three children Susan, Matt, and Ken) left Karlruhe in Dec 1971 for reassignment to Fort Knox and later to Ft Huachuca, Az. I retired as a full colonel in June 1979 after 27 years on active duty. Eugene J Stokes 9460 Cedar Ridge Ln Sarasota, Fl 34238 Links Ulm/Neu Ulm Berchtesgaden Garmisch Ankara, Turkey