Hello John. Apparently we were at Ramey at the same time for several months but I don't think that I knew you. I think that possibly was because most of us RM's in Comm kind of kept to ourselves. I only recall a couple of the name of OT's in my duty section, and really didn't have too much interaction with even them. As for the deterioration of the T bldg and the rest of the facility, it has been taken over by a group of Puerto Rican actors or something like that and they rehabbed a lot of the T building for their use. The CO when I was there was LCDR Craig Gilchrist (now diseased) and he had 2 small boys. One of them (can't recall his name right at the moment) is online and I made contact with hm a couple of years ago just by Googlng "NavFac Ramey" and I had a visual chat with him and his brothers because they wanted to know anyone who was at Ramey when his Dad was the CO. They were only about 10 yrs. old and their Dad died not too long after they were at Ramey, so wanted to know anything about their Dad that someone who knew him could share. The visual chat with him and his 2 brothers was interesting, because he travels around the world (mostly in Asia) and has his own website. On his early travels, he returned to Ramey and has a LONG visual article on his website of the T bldg and the base which really brings back memories, but after the Navy closed the NavFac, the T bldg. was completely gutted to the point that I barely recognized anything inside it, and I mean gutted right down to the bare cement walls - wiring and everything was totally removed from the building. Tks. for your response and I will probably donate the binder I have to the museum that I mentioned in my original post.
The Cold War Museum would probably take your NAVFAC Ramey binder but doubt it would be properly displayed, if displayed at all. The Cold War Museum at Vint Hill, VA is packed with a wonderful collection of Cold War artifacts from all services and defense organizations. SOSUS/IUSS has a display, but they weren't able to use all of the material that was offered (space limitations).
A more appropriate venue for such an important piece of IUSS history (Ramey was the very first NAVFAC) might be the Commander Undersea Surveillance (CUS) headquarters in Virginia Beach, VA. They have a brand-new building with a large atrium. A couple of years ago, the previous Commodore, CAPT Scott Luers, USN asked for donations of museum quality artifacts to display appropriately in that atrium.
I am in contact with the CUS staff on a regular basis. Please contact me and I can provide assistance in helping you protect this important piece of our SOSUS/IUSS legacy.
Jim Donovan
CAPT USN (Ret)
Jim_Donovan53@yahoo.com
757-376-2019
