1. 2013 Reunion pictures 1-15
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    First of all I’d like to thank Fred Eckelmann for the outstanding job he did as committee chairman.
    We officially started the reunion on Wednesday, September 18, 2013 with an earlybird reception from about 6pm to 10pm.
    On Thursday, September 19 we opened registration at noon till about 10pm.
    On Friday, September 20 we gathered in the lobby of the hotel for breakfast from six o’clock to 7:15. At 8am our buses departed for the Gettysburg Battlefield tour. It was a short drive to Gettysburg battleground area. The first stop was at the visitors center and museum where we picked up our tour guide. We made about six stops in the battleground area while our guide explained the facts about the battle. We went back to the visitor center and museum and had lunch and to tour the Museum for a couple of hours. About 3pm we returned to the hotel. We opened the hospitality room and people went to dinner on their own. Some of the units had unit mini-reunions planned for that evening. Danney Pickard had planned a get together and large dinner program for members of the 190th Assault Helicopter Company, and I must say that he did a terrific job. We close down the hospitality room about 11pm.
    We started Saturday, 21 September with breakfast from 7:15 8:15. We started our business meeting about 9 PM for about an hour. From noon to about 5 PM we had a shuttle bus to take people back and forth from the hotel to the U.S. Army heritage and education center on the base at Carlisle. From about 6 to 7pm we had a social hour and started the buffet dinner at about 7pm. Our guest speaker was Col. Donald Galli, Chief of Staff, U.S. Army war College. A few interesting facts about Col. Galli: he has done a few tours in Iraq and Afghanistan, he was also the last commander of the last UH 1 helicopter company in the U.S. Army stationed in Hawaii. During the time that he commanded the unit they went to Vietnam on the MIA body recovery team mission. So even though he’s quite a few years younger than most of us, he also flew hueys in Vietnam. After the dinner he stuck around to socialize with our group for a couple of hours.
    On Sunday, 22 September, we had breakfast from 7 to 8:30, from 8:30 to 9 AM we had a nondenominational memorial service. Then we start loading up all the displays from the hospitality room and wrapped up the reunion about noon.
    At our Saturday morning business meeting we discussed the 2015 Reunion at Ft Rucker and decided to have our 2017 Reunion in the New Orleans, LA area. We are looking for more volunteers from that area to help with the planning and assist Mike Breaux form a Reunion Committee. We are also looking at contacting a company that plans Reunion, but that adds to the cost. CSM (Ret) Chuck Frye talked to us about the brick paver project at the Army Aviation Museum at Ft Rucker, I’ll print all the info on that in this newsletter, page 18.
    That’s the basic facts about the reunion, now a few comments. Now that I’m retired I have a little more time to attend the reunions, so we arrived about four days early so we would have time to see the town and relax with friends. We took a couple of days to travel to Carlisle, along the way we stopped and visited with Frank Thompson and to pickup a Betamax recorder that Frank donated. We really appreciated that the hotel in Carlisle was right downtown, it was kind of surprising that it was tucked away with buildings that were 150 years old or more. We had enough time to walk through downtown and see all the shops. Quite a few members of our Association also arrived early so we had some time to visit with old friends and meet some new ones. Fred Eckelmann and I went over to the war college and met with Col. Galli, and went shopping for refreshments and snacks for the hospitality room. And since most state laws don’t allow for alcoholic beverages in the hospitality room, we kinda had to sneak them in, and provided a plastic wrap so cans were not visible. We only had one small problem with someone asking the hotel to bring in drinks outside the state law. I like to say for future reunions, for everyone to ask the reunion committee people about that type of stuff rather than the hotel staff, we usually know a safe way around the rule.
    Thanks to the careful and detailed planning Fred Eckelmann accomplished, he was able to send in $1915.24 from the remaining reunion funds once all the bills were paid and refunds made. Fred did just about all the planning and details for the Reunion by himself, some input from his lady friend, so we owe him a great big thank you for his hard work.