From: Ben517@aol.com
Sent: Monday, June 29, 2009 6:35 PM
To: theresapugh@mindspring.com
Subject: MAIL CALL NO. 1823 - 517TH PRCT- JUNE 28, 2009

 
70 Pleasant St. Cohasset, MA. 02025 ,781 383 0215 * Mail Call : Ben Barrett  Ben517@aol.com 
 
Hello,
Last Mail Call should have been number 1821.  But will leave things alone. Getting into big numbers!
 
  Send contributions for Film Project to.
 
                                         Leo Dean             

Update on the                  14 Stonehenge Lane

517th Film Project            Albany, NY  12203

 
Please let me know if you want to receive Mail Calls or if you have a problem receiving them. You can always read back Mail Calls  by clicking on www.517prct.org/archives
Ben

Website                                www.517prct.org  
Mail Call                               Ben517@aol.com
Mail Call Archives               
  www.517prct.org/archives
Roster                                 
www.517prct.org/roster.pdf


Click on                               National Reunion

                                             Salt Lake City

                                             July 9-13, 2009 


Recent website additions:

St. Cezaire and Les Arcs today

A Company in Life Magazine 1944

Pvt. Harry A. Hill, B Company - 200 photos and clippings

Pvt. Richard L. Lynam, H Company, KIA

Operation Dragoon After Action Reports

Mail Handling Procedure During the Invasion of Southern France


Theresa

Dear Steve and friends of Wings

 Greetings from Alexandria VA. Just last night I finally summoned the courage to watch “Saving Private Ryan”, a movie that my brother gave our dad one year. He politely declined to watch it saying that he had some fears about seeing the opening segment which captured the Normandy invasion so accurately and painfully. I did not watch that one segment since it was too brutal for me. But that movie was indeed terrific and moving. While it might not have been the 596’s  experience—I am sure it was indicative of the experiences encountered by these young men. 

 Ann Pugh, 85, is doing remarkably well. She lives with me in Alexandria, VA—just 3 miles from Washington, DC.    Her mind is sharp and she has lost no mental faculties beyond a tiny (normal) bit of memory loss. Her vision and mobility are not so great but she can still read and works on a computer every day. She is writing a book for children.   She gets tremendous joy from her six grandchildren and three great grandchildren who are scattered from Arkansas and Texas to Spokane.

 My oldest friend visited me from Texas last week. The irony was that she and I did the collating of the Wings Newsletter for about 12 years. We remarked about how we had that assignment every 3 months. Dad got tremendous satisfaction out of bringing the experiences of the men to life. It was pre-internet and pre-desk top publishing. But he spent many hours working on that each night after work. Today a newsletter like that could be produced in a fraction of the time. The dedication to do it is no different today—with your websites. But I do wonder about that loyalty that would make my dad so determined that he worked on the newsletter preparation almost every night after work for an hour or two. Of course he was respecting the men that he served with  and extraordinary experiences of those in combat and what they went on to achieve.

 My words are inadequate to express my appreciation for the men of the 596, along with the many other units, .

 I hope you will let me know if your group know if it meets again—especially if at a location where we can drive to see you.

 Theresa


Steve Markle
10 years ago, Charlie Pugh publish a larger than usual edition of Wings for the 596 PCEC. In it (among other things), he welcomed back Kaare "Allan" Johnson back to the group after years of being lost , how it seems that Claire has always had a knack for planning trips, plus a story on the 517ths own Melvin Biddle and the Memorial for Medal of Honor recipients in Indianapolis, Indiana
 
    Wings - Spring/Summer 1999 Edition     [9.04mb download]
 
...plus the article that includes a full index of the issues that have been scanned to date;
 
 
Enjoy!
 
-Steve-

Darrell Egner
 
Ben

You know I don't have a memory but I believe the 517 developed (3) Generals.  Dick Seitz, and the two Grangers. (Father & Son).  My son flew the Son in his Black-hawk in Germany after the War.

Now a question.  I received a call asking for the names of all the 517 troopers that jumped on August 15.  They want to publish the names in a celebration in Washington, DC.  Do we have such a list?

Darrell Egner
                                    *************
I don't have the names.  Does anyone else have the information?-Ben

 Tom McAvoy
 had good results from the DAV also  but a strange situation occurred there, The DAV was handling my case and the results had not come down  yet,  I found a guy with the Purple Heart outfit that had never lost a case against the V.A.  So right away I and Jim Degnan  got in touch with this new guy and he got right on the case and told me to have the DAV call him at this number and he would instruct them how to handle the case and they would win it  so they did and we both got our 100% within 3 weeks cost a few bucks though as he was an attorney, and they do not work for free Tom