Reflection on 2009 reunion

Whew! If you missed this year's reunion, let me tell you, it was really something.

I'll write more later, and heartily encourage anybody who was there to share their personal reflections here, but right now, I'm just giving the highlights.

For the first time that I'm aware of, we had, not just one, not even two, but three different commanding officers present.

We also heard from Bryan Kassahn, a former 516th member, who was part of the initial engineer force to enter Iraq this decade. He had a slide show presenting his perspective of what they encountered, and it isn't always what the press has to show us. He was unable to make it to the reunion, but had sent the slide show on a CD and phoned in to narrate the show. One of my favorite scenes was when he gave a 15-year old Iraqi girl her first pair of shoes ever. Judging by the emotion in his voice, I'm certain this was one of the high points of that tour for him.

And, we also heard a riveting presentation from Chris Reeder, the son of former 516th member Don Reeder, about his time serving as a guard at the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier. I was personally moved by Chris's presentation, as he showed insight to a very private segment of the military whose credo is to honor those who have come before us.

I'm not sure of the exact number of former members of the 516th who were present, but according to Gene Ogletree's lovely wife Linda, this was easily the largest turnout we've ever had. According to some estimates, there were somewhere around 70-80 people attending the catered meal on Thursday night, but this number includes family members.

On a personal note, my dad had his 76th birthday on that Thursday and he has said many times since, that this one was one of the best birthdays he's ever had. I do know that it was definitely the first time he's had a group of 70-80 people, including nearly a dozen from his time with the 516th, singing "Happy Birthday" to him. Additionally, someone commented that Paul Sharkey had also marked a recent birthday, so the group then serenaded him with the same song. I swear that I heard somebody with a loud voice proclaim, "Happy birthday, dear Jaws."

If anybody has any memories from this year's reunion that they want to share here, please email me at
reunion516@yahoo.com
and I'll work to get those posted on the blog as well.

This invitation goes for photos, too. Email them to me, or if you have them uploaded at a photo-sharing site, like Flickr or PhotoBucket, send me the link and we'll get a post here with that on the blog.

Thanks to all of those who came and presented this year for making the reunion the special occasion that it was.