A Century Of Life At Ft. Bragg

By Anita Rao,

Frank Stasio

Published November 2, 2017 at 12:01 PM EDT

Ft Bragg Stories A mixed 'chalk' of U.S. and British paratroopers line up to board a C-130 transport plane for the main jump of the joint exercise.

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The Ft. Bragg Stories project aims to collect first-person accounts from the first century of life on the base.

Jay Price / North Carolina Public Radio - WUNC

Captain Mike Thomas poses in uniform while deployed on Operation Desert Shield.

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Captain Mike Thomas, 313th Military Intelligence Batallion, on his first deployment during Desert Shield.

Courtesy of Mike Thomas

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Bill Herring (L) and his brother Dewey playing soldiers as children living on Ft. Bragg in the 1940s.

Courtesy of Bill Herring

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Phil Sussman is an officer in the special operations qualification program. Sussman will tell his story this weekend as part of Ft. Bragg Stories project live event.

Courtesy of Elizabeth Friend

North Carolina is home to the largest U.S. military installation in the world by population. It employs more than 50,000 military and close to 30,000 civilians and contributes tens of billions of dollars to the state’s economy.

The base also has a long and storied history. It was built in 1918 as an artillery training ground and later became home to the 82nd Airborne Division and U.S. Army Special Forces. To commemorate a century of life at Ft. Bragg, WUNC is partnering with The Fayetteville Observer and the American Homefront Project to collect first-person accounts of life on and around the base.

Host Frank Stasio talks about that storytelling project with producer Elizabeth Friend. He is then joined by two of the project participants: Tom McCollum, public affairs officer at the base, and Master Sgt. Judy Betancourt. The two will participate in a live storytelling event at the Airborne and Special Operations Museum in Fayetteville this Saturday, Nov. 4 at 3 p.m.