Subj: Mail Call #378 
Date: 11/11/2002 6:15:34 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: mwa@sbcglobal.net
To: Ben517@aol.com
CC: jimiller48@aol.com

Dear Ben:  I am writting on behalf of my father, Walter T. Ammermon of the 517th I Company.  I print and mail each of your mail call's to my father each day that they email arrives.  Your October 24th email for mail call #378 contained a comment from J. MILLER regarding his father, ROMEO J. CASTONGUAY.  My father, Walter T. Ammermon, upon reading your printed email immediately telephoned me and wanted me to pass some information along to Castonguay's son:

"You have every right to be proud of your father.  He was my BEST friend from March 1943, 517th, I company to 1951 when Castonguay went to Korea.  Your father tried to convince me to go to Korea with him, but I went to Germany.  I believe I still have a picture of him telling me goodbye as he was going to Korea.  He was an outstanding combat soldier.  If you would like to call me, I'll be glad to hear from you.  You can phone me at 910-483-8189 or write to Walter Ammermon, 722 Fairview St., Fayettville, NC 28301."

As a side note, since I print and usually read these email before I send them to my father, I just want to take a moment and tell Ben thank you for compiling and sending out this information and make a few comments.  Over the years I have met many veterans that my father has introduced me to.  They have recounted their own histories and memories to me as I sat and listened.  These emails are truly a great genealogy and history that for many sons and daughters is all they may stumble upon and have even if it only gives them a glimpse of their rich heritage.  And now, after 41 years of freedom that I have enjoyed, largely in part due to our fathers, It saddens me to see so many ungrateful citizens that they mock the foundation upon which our freedom, integrity, honor, and values are based upon.  Since I have personally been able to work in several foreign countries, I wish all of the complainers and free loading United States of America bashers the opportunity to go and live somewhere/anywhere else besides the USA.  No matter what you hear, say or see, "There is no place like home" here in the US.  The complainers however, will just keep complaining, won't even vote, will cry about their government assistance being late, and for sure will not leave this county because 1, we may not let them back in, and 2, there must be something good about this country since everyone else in the world with half a brain wants to get here so bad they will risk their lives to do so.  Our fathers, my father, fought and many died for this county to be the land of the free, the envy of most other countries and as children of these great Americans must stand up when we see and hear others running down the country and our military.  Pass this web site along to those who don't know so that they can know what they have been missing.  Maybe then we can let God, our Father in Heaven back into our schools and other events so that even our younger children can have better role models than what we have today.  And, just in case someone reading this is worried that your Ala's or buddah's rights are being trampled on, we respect you also, you to may practice your beliefs in the United States of America, and may sit quietly with respect as we practice our beliefs that the founders of this country so righteously believed in that references to God are in our currency and even in our court system.  Maybe someday God will be back in our public schools and gatherings; if you disagree, we respect your right to leave at any time.  PS.  Don't burn our flag, it is much more than an image or piece of cloth, it represents freedom.

Sincerely,   Michael W. Ammermon, CPA, CFE, DABFA
                                             *****************
This makes it all worthwhile especially after a rough day
Ben
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Entry of Nov 11, 2002 at 11:50 [EST]
Name: Chris Liddell
Unit: Grandfather was in the 517th Co.F
EMail: liddelldesigns@cs.com
How I found the 517th page: A friend told me
Comments: To all of the members of the 517th. (and the other veterans who have served their country during our country's times of war) Just wanted to say thanks to all of you for risking your life, leaving your loved ones, and going through all of the miseries of combat in order to protect the greatest country in the world. Unfortunately, freedom isn't something that can be bought, it's only leased or rented. There are always going to be other countries that hate our way of life and are willing to die for their beliefs as we all saw on 9-11. Lucky for us, Americans are the toughest, most determined people and when someone ruffles our feathers, we always seem to pull together and defend our way of life. Thanks again to ALL of you. You all have my utmost respect and admiration. Happy Veteran's Day 2K2 Sincerely, Chris Liddell Birmingham, AL liddelldesigns@cs.com
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Entry of Nov 11, 2002 at 15:16 [EST]
Name: Joel Streed
Unit:
EMail: jstreed@hotmail.com
How I found the 517th page: From a search engine
Comments: I'm wondering if anyone remembers my father Frank Streed. He was a member of the medical detachment of the 517th. While he never spoke much of his experiences, I know that he was very proud of his service. He always looked forward to the re-unions. Dad passed away almost a year ago, and I would love to be able to share some stories with his grandchildren as they grow older. Thanks for the excellent site!
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Subj: The lost is found 
Date: 11/11/2002 8:53:36 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: thetraveler@pnx.com

Hi Ben --

Thanks to ALL the Veterans everywhere!!!  We DO appreciate you.

Just hung up the phone with Bentley Linscomb.   His wife's name is Louise and they have been married for 63 yrs.      He lives out in the country and gave me directions on how to get to their house.   So will probably drive across the river into Louisiana this week.   He said he has lots to show me and I told him that I was bringing a lot of things too - like some pictures of the Bill Lewis trip, some Thunderbolts (am sure he would like to be on the mailing list.   He didn't seem to know what the Thunderbolt was).     Anyway, here is his address:

Bentley Linscomb
3359 Linscomb
Vinton, La.  70668
Phone:  1-337-589-7966

And I'll send you the article that was in my paper this morning via snail mail as I don't have a scanner.

Shirley McCarey
friend of the 517th
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Subj: NYTimes.com Article: A Call to Honor  
Date: 11/11/2002 8:33:15 PM Eastern Standard Time
From: jalicki@yahoo.com
To: ben517@aol.com

This article from NYTimes.com
has been sent to you by jalicki@yahoo.com. (Boom Boom )

A Call to Honor

November 11, 2002
By LUCIAN K. TRUSCOTT IV

LOS ANGELES
My father died two years ago. He was a veteran of two wars,
in Korea and Vietnam, and for reasons of his own, he didn't
want the military funeral he was entitled to. But Veterans
Day seems like a good time to honor his service to his
country with a story about his lifelong love of the bugle
call, taps.

As a boy, my father learned to play the bugle from the
bugler in my grandfather's horse cavalry squadron. Today
his bugle rests on its tarnished, dented bell atop my son's
bedroom dresser; on the wall of the room is a photograph of
a mounted Cub Scout Pack at Fort Meyer, Va., taken in 1931.
My father, a tiny figure on a giant horse, holds the bugle
against his thigh. The bugle reaches up to his shoulder,
almost, and looks half as big as he is. I recall him
telling me how proud he was when my grandfather finally
agreed to let him play taps as a duet with the squadron
bugler at lights out and cavalry funerals.

Taps goes back a long way in the United States military -
to 1862, and Gen. George B. McClellan's failed Peninsular
Campaign in Virginia. According to a history compiled by
Arlington National Cemetery, taps was the inspiration of
Gen. Daniel Adams Butterfield, a brigade commander in the
Union Army of the Potomac, who was not happy with the bugle
call for lights out. As Butterfield explained in a letter
to Century Magazine in 1898, he felt that the Army's
end-of-day music was too stiff and formal and needed to be
replaced with something smoother and more melodious.

Butterfield could play calls on the bugle - training on the
instrument was mandatory for officers commanding regiments
and brigades - but he could not write music, so he sent for
his brigade bugler, Oliver Wilcox Norton. With Norton
making the musical notations, Butterfield played variations
on "lights out," holding some notes longer and shortening
others, until he was satisfied with his new version.

It was later in the Peninsular Campaign that taps was first
played at a military funeral after an artillery cannoneer
was killed in action. The battery commander determined that
the enemy was so close that firing three memorial shots
over the grave of the dead soldier might lead to an enemy
attack, so he ordered taps to be played instead.

The tradition soon spread to other units in the Army of the
Potomac. The 1891 manual for Infantry Drill Regulations
made taps mandatory at military funerals, and playing taps
remains an honor legally accorded to honorably discharged
veterans, who are also entitled to a two-person military
honor guard and the folding and presentation of the United
States flag.

When I was growing up on military posts around the world,
taps was played nightly at lights out by the bugler from
the Army band. At large bases, the bugler played into the
public address system, and the call was amplified
throughout the post. But on small posts, like the one at
Oberammergau, Germany, where we were stationed for several
years in the mid-1950's, a solitary bugler stood in the
center of the parade ground and sounded taps without
amplification. On summer nights, my father would get his
bugle and walk across the street and play taps as a duet
with the Army bugler, and I can still remember lying awake
listening to him. I can also remember his sense of outrage
when, at another base we lived on, taps played by a
flesh-and-blood bugler was replaced with a recording.

My father felt that taps lost its meaning when it was not
interpreted by a soldier playing the bugle. I remember him
playing taps so that the notes lingered mournfully, like an
echo from the Army's past, signaling the end of the day and
reminding soldiers of those who had gone before them. When
he cracked a note, it spoke volumes about loss and
mortality. Years later, when my father was a battalion
commander, he made certain that a bugler played taps at
funerals for soldiers in his unit; if one was not
available, he played it himself. He thought it was the
least the Army could do to honor the service of a soldier.

Apparently, the people who run the Pentagon today have a
different idea of what is necessary to honor the life of a
soldier. Two years ago, because of a shortage of trained
buglers, Congress decided to allow recordings of taps to be
played at military funerals. Recently, the Department of
Defense decided to build on this strategy, spending $50,000
to develop a bugle, equipped with memory chip and
amplifier, that plays an electronic rendition of taps.
Beginning this month 50 of the bugles will start to be used
at veterans' funerals, some 100,000 of which are conducted
each year.

I'm glad my father isn't around to witness the latest
technological twist on a fine old Army tradition. With faux
buglers playing faux taps on faux bugles, the only real
thing left at military funerals will be the honor of the
dead.

Lucian K. Truscott IV, a 1969 graduate of West Point, is
the author of ``Full Dress Gray.''
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