Subj: MAIL CALL NO 347 517TH PRCT
Date: 08/29/2002 4:29:16 PM Pacific Daylight Time
From: Ben517
BCC: WALTERWS



Hello,

I am sending a hyperlink for a parachute screen saver. Please let me know if you are able to get it to work.
Ben

Website--prct517.home.attbi.com  or members.aol.com/prct517/

Mail Call-Ben517@aol.com

__Parachure Screen Saver - copy this file to C:/Windows directory
_____________________________________________________
Subj: RE: MAIL CALL NO. 346  517TH PRCT
Date: 8/27/2002 8:45:27 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: RayhessR@netscape.net

  GOOD MORNING BEN! Thru your MAIL CALL, My Wife, PAULINE, and I wish to send our sympathy to JOHN LISSNER and his FAMILY.  OUR BEST REGARDS TO ALL   POLLY & RAY HESS    "F" CO.
______________________________________________________________________
_________   
Subj: Tony
Date: 8/27/2002 12:05:12 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: ngott@neteze.com

Hi Ben,
I read the email to Nacho about Tony.  He wants to let Tony know how much he is hoping he will get well.  Nacho was surprised as he remembered when Tony was dancing around doing the jitterbug.

Nila Vasquez Gott
PS  Nacho is starting Chemo  this week.
Nila Gott
See my website!
home.neteze.com/ngott
_____________________________________________________________________________
Subj: Re: Tony Esparza
Date: 8/27/2002 7:20:27 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: JOEMAACK610

Hi Ben,
     I got your message about Tony's not having an E-mail address. Thanks a lot, I guess I'll try writing to him again, I'm curious as to how he made out with the VA. According to what he told me is, that they had no record of his being wounded on August 22, 1944. If one checks the daily morning report they would see that he was reported wounded on the 22nd and they had me as being wounded on the 23rd, although we were both wounded on the same day, the 22nd. Again thanks a lot for checking your e-mail addresses for me.

                                          Joe Mackiewicz
______________________________________________________________________
Subj: About BILL MAULDIN
Date: 8/29/2002 2:15:02 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: BoomBoomAlicki

From:  Wasp188
To:  ColonelDan@att.net
http://www.chicagotribune.com/news/printedition/chi-0208250338aug25.story


Somewhere, Willie and Joe are proud and grateful


Bob Greene, Chicago Tribune
Published August 25, 2002

The world, as it always has, circles around.

What came before will always return. When we're lucky, this truth applies to
goodness. The goodness will circle around and come right back, to the same
place.

"He just lights up," said Diana Schilling. "He gets a twinkle in his eye,
and you can tell that he is feeling good."

She was talking about Bill Mauldin. Schilling is the administrator of the
nursing home in Orange County, Calif., where Mauldin, now 80, resides.

He speaks hardly at all. His health is frail -- terribly burned in a
household accident, his cognitive skills almost gone, he had been in bad
spirits lately. But then the World War II guys started showing up to visit
with him. Letters began pouring in from across the U.S., and were read to
Bill.

"This is bringing him happiness," Schilling said.

The world circles around. It was Mauldin -- the great soldier-editorial
cartoonist of World War II, the baby-faced enlisted man who captured the
reality of life on the front lines and put it in the pages of Stars and
Stripes for his fellow fighting men -- who brought those men warmth and a
little happiness on the battlefields. Stars and Stripes would arrive -- and
the men, if only for a few minutes, would find something to smile about.
There would be Willie and Joe -- Mauldin's cartoon infantrymen -- on the
pages of the newspaper, and the soldiers would know: No matter how bad it
got, someone understood. They weren't alone. Bill Mauldin understood.

Now those soldiers are returning the favor. Having read about Bill, they are
coming to see him every day. Now they are putting the light of contentment
in his eyes, the smile on his face. They are doing for him what he, so many
years ago, did for them.

"Some of the men cry on the way down the hallway to his room," Schilling
said. "They can't believe they are finally going to meet Bill Mauldin."

I did not print the name of the nursing home when I wrote about Bill two
weeks ago; working in concert with newspaperman Gordon Dillow of the Orange
County Register, I wanted the visits and mail to Bill to reach him in an
orderly way that would not be confusing to him. Dillow said that one day
last week he took more than 1,000 cards and letters to the nursing home;
they are coming in faster than they can be counted.

"The staff reads the letters to Bill," Dillow said. "They put some of the
cards on the wall of his room. He can't really respond verbally, but they
say he knows what is happening, and that this is very good for him."

And the offers by old soldiers to visit Bill keep arriving. He is having
visitors in his room every day; enough World War II veterans have
volunteered to come sit with Bill -- to talk to him, to read to him, just to
be there with him -- that he will be able to have daily company through the
end of the year and beyond.

"Some are a little sad after they leave the room, because of his condition,"
Dillow said. "But they are thrilled. This is Bill Mauldin."

Your letters have been amazing. I don't have space here to do much more than
quote from a few of them -- but they stir the heart. I was especially
honored that Stars and Stripes summarized the column both in its print
editions distributed to U.S. military forces around the world, and on its
Internet site; because of that, today's young soldiers, sailors and aviators
have added their best wishes for Bill to those sent by the World War II
soldiers.

David W. Nelson of Worcester, Mass., wrote Bill that as a pilot in World War
II he flew hundreds of soldiers from the battlefields to hospitals: "In
spite of their horrendous wounds, those who could speak would always ask if
we had a copy of Stars and Stripes because they wanted to see what Willie
and Joe were up to. Bill Mauldin brought smiles and laughter through buckets
of tears. He is forever in the hearts of anyone who wore a U.S. uniform."

From Richard R. Strickland: "You would have had to be a part of a combat
infantry unit to appreciate what moments of relief Bill gave us. You had to
be reading a soaking wet Stars and Stripes in a water-filled foxhole and
then see one of his cartoons. Bill, I know that enlisted men are not
supposed to salute each other. But as a former infantry combat platoon
sergeant, I salute you and wish you well."

From Hap Haggard, in Tucson, Ariz., came this offer: "I took the liberty of
calling a couple of barbershop quartet guys in Southern California. I told
them about Bill Mauldin's plight, and suggested that a barbershop quartet,
especially one composed of older guys, might visit with Bill. My quartet has
sung for many a 50th wedding anniversary, so we know firsthand what music
can do for an older heart. Perhaps a quartet can do just that for Bill."

There are so many more -- so many more words of gratitude and love sent to
Bill, by so many of you.

The world circles around, as it always has.

Thank you.

- Bob Greene comments on the news of the day Thursdays on the "WGN News at
Nine."


Send cards to:
Bill Mauldin
C/O   Gordon Dillow
Orange County Register,
625 N. Grand Ave.,
Santa Ana,  CA 92701