i will begin with a little on pappy hudson. he was well known throughout the rangers and well liked, i did not know any of his family. i do not know when or how he died. i do have a picture of him and i standing outside of mrc hq and i have several other pictures of the mrc rope comm and stafford and i. now to move on about stafford. he was from mt hope (beckley are) west va. ( i am from, and now live in martinsburg, WV) he has a younger brother and sister i know not where they are. his twin brother believe has the same first name as mine) his twin was a capt in the 82d in the early sixties thats all i know about him. stafford and i both was in the 1st abn battle gp 504th inf 82d in 58 i was in a co and he was in e co i believe. we both gyroed to europe Mainz germany in dec 58 on the uss buckner it was a terrible trip. both of us came back to bragg in 61 and subsequently both attended ranger school i in 61 and i think he in 62. we both were assigned to mrc in 63. he had married a german girl named hannelore and he had 3 children mike, larry and shirley. he left bragg in a vw bus with a uhaul on the back and almost did not make it up the mountain coming from gville into dah. they lived out of town on the right towards dawsonville until he bought in cane creek. oh yeah we were both assigned as a abn bg to a leg div the 8th in mainz. in the sixties where you seen stafford, you seen rice we were joined together at the hip. he purchased a 64 lemans i purchased a 64 chev ss. we were all 4 of us noll, phillips at the nco club drinking barley pop and we were getting a little buz and decided to go to d the gold city rest which was a pool hall at that time. but that L shaped curve to the right on the main rd stafford tried to take at 60mph we flipped on to the top and slid about 50 yds i kicked open the back window and we exited no one got a scratch. i forget what happened later on. a short time later my ss was stolen and stripped while i was o/n on yonah. i bought a new one from fred jones who was subsequently murdered behind his garage later. no one was caught for that as far as i know. by the way stafford had picked up a few pounds hannelore said it was because he usually ate 4 ham sandwiches before the evening meal. so he got as knew name affectionately known as "round man". everyone called me uncle ben or ben because of uncle bens rice, even tony. stafford and i liked to play with snakes. so one day we caught a big black snake and we decided to put it in his fastigue shirt and go to g c rest. when the waitress came over stafford let its head pop out of the shirt. waitress made a quick exit. we always played pool with a mail carrier that had a wooden leg wwll i believe. one time we were up on yonah and i caught a copper head and stafford wanted it. just so happens ltc g, tassey was up there to and stafford decided to show it to tassey and it bit stafford on the finger and tassey got really shook, because you know the normal reports to benning. any way stafford did not get excited at all he calmly put the snake into a sand bag and tassey made him go to gville to get treatment. now this is the part you won't believe. the snake died. hoyt phillips and gary littrell (MOH) witnessed it. thats a fact. more later i do ot wish to bore you.

doug good to hear from you. i came down to the mrc 6 years ago and on my way out i stopped and talked to a.howard. he said you worked at walmart, but you were not there when i asked one of the workers and three years ago i returned and a black guy security guard at the mrc said you were in charge of security there but i couldn't find you. i stopped at the px and went in and talked to the camp sgm. i also went to one of the mines and panned 1/2 ounce of gold. i was down to ft. bragg last month and met with a lot of my old 82d buddies for a 50th reunion. congrats on your hall of fame acceptance. i have sent in a subscription to the d nugget. joe pappy hudson was a big broadchested man with a heart of gold and stong as a pair of oxen, but you did not disagree or argue with him at any time. he was and msg e7 when i reported to mrc. he was actually the fist leg ranger i ever met. i cannot remember if he ever actually made e9, but he was and e8 later. doug i don't know if you remember when we tore down the old TOC on the hill, but it had about 6 or 8 large rattle snakes under it. i remember when major acre used to come to the TOC when all the lane graders were getting there briefings and he would come in and say"what manner of frivolity is this" every time he said that. i just now remembered what kenny's name was sfc davenport. he lived in the same mobile home park with langdon and one of the bennets. is andy howard doing ok? one time davenport and i was on a helicopter with major acre flying over the patrols and he looked down and saw a lane grader allowing a patrol to go across open terrain and the major looked at me and said "rice land this thing" i looked at davenport and davenport said sir rice is not the pilot and he said well tell the pilot to land close to that patrol. that lane grader paid the price of a real embarassing moment. i will remember his name later. does anyone remember walt sutton? he was the local game warden and always came by the rope shack down at the 60 ft cliff and shot the bull with us he let us fish and deer hunt w/o a license. also, a frequent visitor was the local catholic priest who would ride his motorcycle down there to talk to us and boy did we need it. oh yeah, he had a side car on it. stafford and i really needed to hear from him because we had a reputation in "D" with the ladies. most of it was not true. doug do you remember 'peg lance' the local cop and sheriff ralph ridley. i can tell you a funny story about peg some other time. well i've rattled on enough. doug, i went thru class 2 of 61 in the easy weather. july,aug,sept. RLTH rice