Dead Soldier City

We left our apartment at WorldMark at about 5 am, and had an interesting drive crossing the ridge of the Sierras on Highway 175 to Hopland. I took a quick shot of a gorgeous sunrise as we were halfway up the mountain. The road was gloriously beautiful as it twisted along the mountain passes, but I became a bit concerned when a few speedsters in sports cars rushed up behind me, wanting to pass on the narrow, curvy road. We stopped along the way at McDonald's for a quick breakfast and soon found ourselves traveling south on the east side of Oakland Bay. I had never seen San Francisco from this side, so again I stopped to take some quick photos.

Driving further south toward Monterey, what really got my attention was Fort Ord. When I was a young soldier stationed at the Presidio in Monterey, we referred to Fort Ord as "Soldier City." It was larger than most of our home towns. Glenda and I would go to Fort Ord for groceries at the commissary, for medical and dental care, and for most other services the Army provided us. Most of the military materiel arriving or departing from Vietnam came through Fort Ord. One can imagine my shock as we made the turn into the Army base--it was not there. Almost all of the buildings had been razed. Only a chapel, the police station and the hospital remained. The few billets and warehouses still standing lay derelict with weeds around them, and even a few trees growing up through them. But mostly, they were gone. The few patches of concrete parking lots that had not been carried away were hardly visible, infested with weeds. There used to be miles of billets, training areas, warehouses, and munitions facilities. Now they are all gone.

Few things in my life have ever made me feel so old. The world has changed. This is not the world I knew in 1971. The Stoic philosopher Epictetus is noted for saying, "There is nothing permanent except change." I learned today at an existential level that he was right. Soldier City has changed. It is gone. It is dead.Read more