Instead of flying in this year, am taking Amtrak. A nice slow,leisurely way to travel. Lots of room to relax, and food on board. I am looking forward to this. Plus, the entire round trip cost about $175.00 dollars. The plane trip would have been three times as much, with a lot more hassle.

This morning I received Capt Fallon's letter concerning the 2011 Reunion. I feel very privileged to be included as a friend of the 36th/540th and look forward again to meeting everyone at the Quality Inn, PA in September. I am at present researching in depth the building of the 'Bridge in the sky' on the northern coast road in Sicily in 1943. I hope to have some material to show and discuss with those present.

Colin.

Ah, you got your letter before I got mine.

Yes, John is very thoughtful and everyone enjoyed your company. It's nice to feel welcome, yes?

Just made my reservations!

YEAH!!!!!!! I am so excited!!!

Nine weeks today!!!

Colin.

Reunion just keeps getting better all the time...

The 36th Brigade has just changed command and Colonel Dave Hill will take over from Col Kent Savre. Colonel Hill has scheduled a visit with all of us and will attend Friday and Saturday. How wonderful. So if all goes well, both Col Savre and Hill will attend.

I'm very much looking forward to it!

Even more news this morning.

Craig Singhaus was the one who arranged to have some re-enactors at last year's reunion. Unfortunately due to his scheduling, he wasn't able to attend himself. However this year, he will be able to join us and not only is he going to be there, but he is looking into arranging a parade through the streets of Lebanon with an array of jeeps, etc.

I talked to Captain John Fallon about this and his enthusiastic response was, "Let's let it all hang out!"

:1028: :1028: :1028:

The tentative plan is to have the parade begin at the hotel Saturday morning at approximately 10. He is going to call the Chamber of Commerce and possibly a local boy scout troop and alert a local newspaper, so we can have people lined up with flags to see the parade of vets and their families.

I told him there was a veteran's park just a block away, and we thought it would be nice to have the vehicles debark there and have a brief ceremony. Sounds great to me.

As you can imagine, I am very, very excited about the prospects! Thanks Craig!!!

IT JUST GETS BETTER M1!!

Colin

I agree! Kind of the frosting on the cake!

Ma'am,

 

I'm working on COL's Hill David 36th Engineer Brigade Commander travel

order to attend the reunion at PA. In order to do that our system requires

an agenda or invitation to be upload into the system . Dou you have any of

these two? If you do can you email either one of them to me so I can

finishthis process for COL Hill.

 

Thanks

 

SPC Rodriguez Robert

Assistant to the Command Group

36th Engineer Brigade

"Stay Rugged"

Fort Hood, Texas 76544

In response to his request, I created the following attachment. Happy to oblige!

The 36th Engineer Combat Regiment of WWII.pdf

THAT'S ANOTHER PLUS MARION - JUST 20 DAYS !!!

Colin.

Here's a list of attendees - September 2011! Thanks to all who attended and made this a smashing success!

Tony Stefanelli - (36th) and son Carl

John T Fallon - (36th)

Carl Furtado - (36th)

Don Walters - (36th) and daughter Donna Mong

John Zappitello - (36th) and wife Marguerite

Bob Felker - (36th) and daughter Lorraine Huddock

Charles Kassebohm - (36th)

Mike Cassic - (36th) and girlfriend Joan

Iradell Gaylen - (36th) and daughter Margi Johnson and her husband Russ and their two children Clay and Dylan

Gene Gaylen - brother of Iradell and also a WWII veteran

Marion Chard - (daughter of Walter Poniedzialek - 540th) and her daughter Kai-Ann Carney

Colin Hotham - (historian from England and forum member)

Jim Miller - (son of Bill Miller - 36th)

Tim Prater - (son-in-law of George Parnell - 36th)

Todd O'Brien - (grandson of John C O'Brien - 540th)

Joe Sumanski - (son of Frank Szumlanski - 36th (yes the spelling is different))

Colonel David Hill - current commander of the 36th Engineer Brigade

I am almost through uploading approximately 275 images from the reunion. It's taken a long time for I had to run through all the photos and deleted ones which were fuzzy, etc. Then I go through and re-size, change orientation, crop & tweak almost every photo and then re-name each one. So you can see why it takes so long.

Should have them done this evening. Will place link here....

Thanks for your patience!!!