The Battle of Pine Cone Woods.

The generals “generally” hated liberal Ted Kennedy, but Sen. Ted Kennedy was coming to Ft. Bragg. You don't get to be a general if you can't play nice with people you don't like. Especially if those people vote on your purse strings.

It was the Fall of 1968, and Ted was coming to Ft. Bragg to visit the John F. Kennedy Center for Special Warfare. The JFKCSW was the command headquarters of the Green Berets, Army Psychological Operations, and a few other hush-hush commands. The Vietnam War was in full swing, and the Brass at Bragg were atwitter about the Senatorial visit.

Ft. Bragg is one of the largest military installations in the US. In addition to the Green Berets and the Rangers, it is home to the 82d Airborne Division. Were it not for the howitzers, tanks, barracks, and such, it would be a pretty community, nestled there among the deep pine woods of North Carolina. With nearly 50,000 personnel in residence, in '68 it was as large as many cities in the US. With just as many streets and roads. Those pine trees, and those streets, are what we'll talk about today.

At the time, I was assigned to the 13^th Psyops Bn., part of the JFKCSW. The orders came down from Fort headquarters, the base must look extremely neat and clean for the senator. And that meant picking up all of the pine cones lying randomly under all of the trees along the roads of the post. It was Fall. There were thousands upon thousands, perhaps even millions, of them.

Never mind that Ted was on a tight schedule, and a general tour of the base was not planned. Never mind that his limo would probably whiz down one straight road from the main gate the 5 miles to the one building he was scheduled to visit. And probably back out the same route a short time later. Nope, “It's not your job to think of that, Soldier.” It was the job of the soldiers, in battalions, brigades, and divisions, to pick up and toss into trucks every visible pine cone at Fort Bragg. It took about a week for one thing, no one told the trees, and they kept dropping fresh cones. Finally, all portions of the 251 square mile fort visible from a road were denuded of pine cones.

The truckloads of potential Christmas wreaths were hauled to a distant place, and the brass felt ready for the Senator's arrival.

Then, the night before the visit, a Colonel read something. He ran to the Commanding General. “Sir, sir, Ted Kennedy is an ENVIRONMENTALIST. He's into nature and all that shit. He likes things natural.”

Panic. Phone calls. Orders barked.

Beginning at 4 o'clock in the morning (0400 hours to the brass), every soldier on the post was roused. Trucks were fired up and piled with pine cones from the secret dump, and soldiers began roaring around the post frantically throwing out pine cones.

Hundreds of trucks. Thousands of soldiers. Millions of pine cones. All with a single mission. Untidy Fort Bragg. Make it look naturally pine coney before the senator got there.

Later that morning, Senator Ted Kennedy of Massachusetts was able to motor down a pine cone festooned road to one sibling-named building and back. The soldiers of Fort Bragg, North Carolina had protected your freedoms while you were safe abed. And the pine cones slept in the grass. As God and the Generals intended.