I was at Bragg for summer ROTC training in 1975 when Hay Street war roaring. First advice we got from our cadre was not to go there but it was not off limits. So........not only did we go there but we saw them there too. We did not train on weekends and had our cars so it sure beat sitting on those old world war 2 wooden barracks with no air in June/July. Rick’s Lounge was the favorite stop for us. What a “colorful” place Hay Street was.
Hay Street was a place I drove by once. I just never had a desire to go there. In summer 69 I was an O-3, and; the Maj. I worked for had been in Laos in 62-63, had been at C&C Det. FOB 2 in 66-7, plus he’d been a POW in Korea for 1,000 days. Myself and two other CPT’s in the company went to the Smoke Bomb Hill O’ club during the week after work with the Maj. We’d occasionally have a beer at the green beret sport parachute club on the weekend. That was no place to run one’s mouth as rank meant zip there.