Courtesy Fort Polk,
Insert: Neal Snyder

Fred Cryer visits the site of his familys farm on Fort Polk, La. His father struck this tree with a Model A pickup in the 1940s.

Fred Cryer picks the notes to "I'll Fly Away" a little slower than usual because Danny Hudson is struggling to keep up. Everyone here knows the song, letting Fred, 80, do lyrical things to his guitar, with support from his wifes stand-up bass.

Danny grins as Fred releases him from rhythm guitar duty. Fred can play for hours, but its the first time Danny, of the Fort Polk, La., environmental division, has played in the Cryers instrument-strewn garage.

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Heritage Families

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Fred Cryer talks about recognition

Today, cultural outreach sounds like bluegrass. Near one of the Armys most rural installations, Danny Hudson is striking the latest notes in a movement among Army posts. Fort Polk, like Fort Hood, Texas, and Fort Drum, N.Y, is working to reconnect with families forced to leave when the Army drew its boundaries on the eve of World War II.

It was a time of crisis for our nation, Hudson says. The Army needed places to train, quickly. A check and 30 days notice was the norm.

Hudson says bluegrass is about either tragedy or forgiveness. This story has both.

Cryer was 12 years old in September 1940. The Army had staged an assault on nearby Leesville that spring during the Louisiana Maneuvers. Washington, D.C., soon decided the sparsely populated area would hold a more permanent camp.

A local land speculator gave Cryers father $500 and 30 days to get off the 20 acres the family had farmed for close to a decade. I was real unhappy with the government, Cryer recalls. We didnt know no war the country was at peace.

But the Cryer family gathered everything, rolling up the fence wire and carefully dismantling the house, and moved to new, unfarmed property. Less than a year of hard rebuilding later, the federal government came calling; the new property was also within the fence line. Cryers father had to sue the government to receive what he had paid for the land.

We thought, how unjust. This was just cruel, Cryer says. He intellectually understood why the government needed the land, he says, but still carried a grudge for almost seven decades.

There are more stories like the Cryers. The establishment of Fort Polk displaced some 70 families.

A lot of these family members have never recovered from it, Hudson says. For more than a year, however, Hudson has been the face of reconciliation, the point man in the installations efforts to heal the wounds left when people were forced from their lands.

Neal Snyder

Hudson credits the garrison commander with the idea. Its 100 percent Col. David Sage, he says. Sage, in his turn, says he was following a blueprint drawn up by Fort Hood, where he served as a battalion commander before taking his current assignment.

At Fort Hood, it began with oral history of its own displaced homesteaders. A present desire appeared among the stories of the past. We found out that a lot of those people were in need of closure because of the circumstances, said Cheryl Huckerby, then cultural resources manager for Fort Hood. They never had a chance to say their goodbyes.

From there came the idea of a reunion. The reunion was initiated by [the families]. We helped them get the word out, facilitated access to Fort Hood and helped them get to the location of their family homes, said Huckerby, who today runs the cultural resources program of the National Guard Bureau.

When the May 2005 reunion was done, the families reacted warmly. Several folks wrote letters to me, Huckerby said. The reunion provided them with closure for something that had haunted their families since 1942.

Sage took note. When he took command of the Fort Polk garrison and found a similar need on his visits to the surrounding community, he phoned James Grafton, installation cultural resources manager.

Like Fort Hoods, Fort Polks cultural resources program had finished its comprehensive archaeological surveys and was documenting the areas more recent history. An oral history project was in the works with a partner, the Northwestern State University (NSU) Folk Life Center.

Sage wanted more than a record. We were well overdue to honor them.

With Sages interest, Our meager efforts were given a whole lot more command emphasis, says Grafton.

Grafton and Ellen Ibert, also of the cultural resources branch, together with NSU researchers, worked to identify the farms and their owners aided by one aerial photograph and a tax roll book rescued from a dumpster after a flood.

Neal Snyder

Danny Hudson, Lucille Cryer and Fred Cryer find common roots in music.

But for the honor mission, Environmental Division chief Charles Stagg chose his natural resources manager. Hudson took on what became known as the Heritage Project in April 2007.

Raised on a family farm in Tennessee, Hudson saw his own grandparents in the displaced. These are my people, he said.

That culture has a particular sense of history. The people grow up with the ideals of respect and remembrance, Hudson says.

With the displaced generation entering their eighth decade, Hudson attacked the project with a sense of urgency. If the displaced generation passed away without being recognized, the resentment could have passed through the generations, according to Hudson. These are highly independent people, he says.

To honor that independence, We let them tell us what they wanted us to do.

We included them from the beginning, Hudson says. Instead of telling the families how they were going to be honored, the installation asked, We want to recognize, honor and memorialize you. How do you want us to do it?

The installations work climaxed one day in the fall, when they invited the families to return to the post. Sage and Maj. Gen. Daniel Bolger, the installation commanding general, each spoke to the more than 400 people, the displaced and their descendants, recognizing and thanking them for their sacrifice. They dedicated a large memorial two marble obelisks displaying the families names.

Families toured the installation, visiting the sites of their homesteads. The main post chapel opened up its meeting hall, where families displayed tables of mementos and swapped stories. Researchers from NSU took hours of oral histories.

The materials oral histories, photos, diagrams will soon be available on a Web site. Grafton and Ibert also intend to make the site interactive for the families, allowing them to capture their own recollections and correct the record.

Its a period of history that was almost lost, Hudson says. Our promise to them was to archive everything we could and make it available to the public.

Knowing the history of their installation also helps Soldiers understand the sacrifices made for them and the people they are fighting for, he says.

Many of the people who built Fort Polk were the same people who were displaced from the landscape, Grafton says. Their children also work on post.

Not just Fort Polk

Sage sees a larger need. Its not just Fort Polk, he says. Its Fort Hood, its basically all the posts that stood up as camps right about this time, around 1941, before the actual Pearl Harbor event.

The community is vital to the growth and readiness of this installation, says Hudson, and affirming that important relationship through partnership efforts like the Heritage Project ensures that continued support.

Another family day will take place in November, and Hudson suspects it will become an annual event. He continues to visit with the displaced families, helping the cultural resources staff gather photos and stories for the archive, completing the history.

Neal Snyder

Danny Hudson and Alvin Locke discuss photos destined for the Heritage Project database.

This closure is just the tip of the iceberg as far as what the nation owes them, Hudson says.

For some, the wounds will take a little longer to heal. Fred Cryers neighbor Alvin Locke, eight years Cryers senior and a World War II vet, still raises his voice when he talks about being moved out. I cant say it wasnt good in the long run, he says. What I didnt like was the way they did it.

Ralph Deason, an antiaircraft gunner in the Pacific Theater after his family left their 80-acre ranch, eventually sold milk to the garrison. The economic benefits, he says, outweighed the initial hardship.

Cryer says much the same thing. But his reaction to the outreach project is nuanced. Hed like to see more steps taken, such as special access for family members to visit the memorial.

The recognition, he says, did a lot for me. He taps his chest. I have a compartment over here, that will be with me as long as I live, that says it was a terrible way for American citizens to be treated.

Then he displays the commanders coin Sage gave him. He agrees, fences have been mended. Hearing the Army say thank you for the sacrifice has done wonders.