Back in the day it could really get cold there. Thirty degrees below zero, without a windchill on top of that. Brrrrrr!
Fort McCoy has a history of hosting foreigners. The first group was World War II German prisoners. They even had the opportunity to have “off post” home visits to people living in the immediate area. Its not like there would be an “escape and evasion” to Iowa!
Then, right after I left my assignment there it became another “prison of sorts” when it hosted Cuban prisoners that Castro released in 1980. I’ll tell you a quick story about that at the end.
Today, the installation has been selected to host Afghan refugees fleeing the Taliban. See this Milwaukee Journal article: “Fort McCoy could house as many as 3,000 Afghan refugees by end of day Friday.” In this case they won’t be prisoners.
It is a good use of the installation that at this time of year has most of the units that rotate through the installation gone from the summer annual training season.
Here’s my quick story. The Mariel boatlift started right after I had received orders and moved to my new assignment with the 1st Armored Division in Erlangen, Germany. We were out on a training exercise and it was in the wee hours of the morning at the battalion Tactical Operations Center (TOC) where I was in charge. Nothing was happening and another soldier there was fluent in Spanish and I asked if he could write in Spanish. He could, so I dictated a letter to the Commander of Fort McCoy that didn’t mention their “new guests” at all and just asked how things were going and if there was anything “new” going on.
Anyway I got a letter back from Col. Moran that was written in German and he, too, ignored the issues he was dealing with and asked me how things were going. I had a good chuckle! And I do speak a little German.
