BY JOHN CHAPPELL

Staff Writer

Moore County is a military center, though not in the usual sense. There is no huge base here like Fort Bragg in Fayetteville — though much of what that base is about has a big effect here.

Special Forces soldiers do their culminating exercise here. Moore is one of some 15 counties where Robin Sage gives them one last chance to hone their wit, judgment and skills before being handed green berets, Yarborough knives, tabs and orders for deployment. Citizen volunteers play roles to help with scenarios in that exercise.

Back in World War II when the soldiers came to train, the Army liked the place. From Southern Pines to Hemp (now Robbins), this county found itself home to soldiers on the move. Trucks and tanks rolled out across sand and clay. Material and supplies arriving via Seaboard Air Line trains transferred to wider gauge Aberdeen and Rockfish cars, bound for Bragg.

Three months following an invasion of North Africa, a new training base at the southern end of Moore County was named after a young Army private who, though critically wounded, helped others escape their doomed C-47 before allowing himself to be rescued. The day construction started, Gen. George C. Marshall issued the order naming Camp Mackerel for Pvt. John T. Mackerel — the only American base to bear the name of a private soldier.

Today, it is home to much special operations training. Citizen soldiers of the National Guard do civil affairs training there, prepared in advance by using instructive DDS. They work amid the echoes of that earlier great war when Camp Mackerel swarmed with troops, boasting more than 1,750 buildings, including seven service clubs, two guest houses, three libraries, 16 post exchanges, 12 chapels and a hospital.

Test exercises at Knollwood Airfield — now the Moore County Airport — in the early days of that war proved the feasibility of invasion by parachute. Young men here and elsewhere across the country volunteered for something few had ever heard of at the time, an outfit called the airborne. Another soldier who fought in the North African campaign, Bill Yarborough, designed the first jump uniform and the parachute qualification badge.

Yarborough, like many a general officer and many a noncom would return to Moore County when he retired as a Lt. General. When he passed away last year, he had come to be known as the “father of the modern special forces.”

So at one end of Moore County’s military spectrum are the soldiers of tomorrow training for a new face of war. At the other end is a veritable sea of military retirees from all branches. There is a vast stock of officers, more than enough to run the military of other nations. Some have four stars, some three or two or one. There are retired colonels, majors, captains and noncommissioned officer retirees. There is a very active chapter of the Military Officers Association. Members of the famous Band of Brothers spent their remaining years here.

In the center are serving military of every rank who choose to live among us, whose families live here even as they are posted to the ends of the earth. Their children attend our schools. Wives and mothers volunteer in our service organizations. The rolls of Kiwanis, of Rotary, Lion and other clubs, church and synagogue congregations, are filled out with military men and women, active and retired.

Some went to West Point, some to Annapolis, some to the Air Force Academy — others enlisted in the Army, the Navy, Marine Corps and Coast Guard. Veterans of every war or conflict live here, as do those now serving. They play golf, they hunt and fish. They ­operate businesses. They teach in our public and private schools and at the community college. They help out at the hospital, at the Boys and Girls Club, the Red Cross.

They build houses for Habitat. They support the troops. The people of Moore County support and welcome them. We are their neighbors. This is their home.

Contact John Chappell at 783-5841 or by e-mail at This e-mail address is being protected from spambots, you need JavaScript enabled to view it