HQ Building

This is where all of the 1st Armored Division magic happened. The Commanding General's office was located here. I was in his office once and it almost felt like I was in the oval office. The JAG building was siutated just to the left of the picture. Our barracks was on the other side of this parking lot so, if you were standing in that parking lot facing the HQ building, our barracks would be behind you. Well, there was the NCO club and then the barracks. This parking lot is where division formations would be held, of course there wouldn't be any cars parked there. The tanks look tiny in this picture (which should give you an idea how large this building was) but if you look closely you'll see one to the left of the flag pole and one to the right. The one on the left side of the picture is the one I painted. A few times I got to post the colors (raise the flag) or retire the colors (take it down) which was kind of ceremonial, patriotic and fun. I didn't really like going to the HQ building because remember, I was terrified of anyone that out ranked me and well, most everyone that worked in this building out ranked me! The CG didnn't use that front door but had his own entrance that was around the corner on the right side. This building was fairly new and modern compared to the other buildings that were on Hindenburg, especially the JAG building which was very old and run down.

Here's a lovely picture of me in my favorite BDU's and combat boots! Go Army! But actually, it's a dumb picture of me and I was only trying to point out how old our bulding was. This was the Criminal Law office --this is where all the JAG magic happened. My desk was behind me to the right of this picture --the messy looking one, somethings never change. You can't really see it here but on my desk was a pice of glass and under that glass I used to keep pictures of my family (mostly Courtney and Morgan) & post cards or letters from home. Directly behind my shoulder you can see the ancient word processor we used to use and look at that old school typewriter and yes, I did have to type documents sometimes. There's nothing too exciting in this picture but you can see the paint peeling off of the walls, the horrible gold curtains. We never opened those because though an outside view would have been nice, the windows were so filthy dirty, like YEARS of dirt, you couldn't see out of them. And those curtains had been hanging so long untouched, dust would actually fly off of them if you touched them. I don't know if you can see but just behind my head is another head, SGT Y, who was the other pre-trial clerk in Crim Law. He was working at the word processor at the time. His desk is the one facing mine, notice how neat it is? There were 3 other desks in this office that are out of the shot to the left. Whomever was taking this picture is standing in the doorway to the office.

This office was on the second floor and as soon as you walked out there was a very wide hallway and stairs. The stairs going up led to a third floor unfinished attic. I LOVED going up there because there were boxes and boxes of interesting things to go through such as; old ROT's (records of trial), personal property left behind by soldiers (some of it quite old), broken or retired office furniture, etc. It was a huge dark, dusty and hot room but I could spend hours up there looking through old things. The door leading to the attic was quite heavy opened with those old fashion skeleton keys. Whenever I'd have to take something up there, usually boxes of old files, I'd linger on.

This picture reminds me how much I hated wearing BDU's. I can't even describe to you how much I hated BDU's. I had bruises all around my ankles from the combat boots, which I thought would be there for the rest of my life --they eventually went away when I stopped wearing boots. At the end of each duty day I would almost sprint back to my room in anticipation of getting those boots off! First thing I'd do when I got back to my room was rip those things off. I hated wearing my hair up mostly because I was so horrible at keeping it up especially when I had to take my hat on and off everytime I went in/out of a building. That collar, which is sporting some Private Frist Class rank (E3), used to get on my nerves rubbing against my neck because it was so stiff from the starch. The drab boring color speaks for itself.