Hello,
Website----www.517prct.org
Mail Call---Ben517@aol.com
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Subj: Check out "The 4th of July"
Date: 7/3/2003 6:12:01 AM Eastern Daylight Time
Click Here: The 4th of July This is very nice, hope you enjoy it and also enjoy your holiday. Stay safe and take care how you go.
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(Subj: Re: MAIL CALL NO 504 517TH PRCT-July 2, 2003
Date: 7/2/2003 11:41:28 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: Tomx517
To: Ben517
CC: Camrod518
Ben;
Camrod 518 alias 517 Para Bear Napper is to be thanked for her submission of Army Major's Report On Iraq.
It is an interesting and well written report of what is going on in Iraq today. Hope the "Nay Sayers" get a chance to read this Report.
Regards, Tom
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Subj: Widow goes to Iraq
Date: 7/2/2003 10:28:45 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: PRCT517
To: Ben517
This was posted on Paratrooper.net:
When I told friends about my pilgrimage to Iraq to thank the US troop's
reaction was under whelming at best. Some were blunt. "Why are YOU going
there?" They could not understand why it was important for me, a 9/11, widow to express my support for the men and women stationed today in the gulf.
But the reason seemed clear to me. 200,000 troops have been sent halfway
around the world to stabilize the kind of culture that breeds terrorists
like those who I believe began World War III on September 11, 2001.
Reaction was so politely negative that I began to doubt my role on the first USO / Tribeca Institute tour into newly occupied Iraq where, on average, a soldier a day is killed.
Besides, with Robert De Niro, Kid Rock, Rebecca and Johns Stamos, Wayne
Newton, Gary Senise Lee Ann Wolmac who needed me?
Did they really want to hear about my husband, Neil Levin, who went to work
as director of New York Port Authority on Sept.11th and never came home? How would they relate to the two other widows traveling with me? Ginny Bauer, a New Jersey homemaker and the mother of three who lost her husband, David and former marine Jon Vigiano who lost his only sons, Jon, a firefighter and Joe, a policeman.
As we were choppered over deserts that looked like bleached bread crumbs I
wondered if I'd feel like a street hawker, passing out Port Authority pins
and baseball caps as I said "thank you" to the troops. Would a hug from me
mean anything at all in the presence of the Dallas Cowboy cheerleaders and a Victoria Secrets model?
We arrived at the first "meet and greet" made me weep. (why?) Armed with
m16s and saddlebags of water in 120 degree heat the soldiers swarmed over
the stars for photo and autographs.
When it was announced that a trio of 9/11 family members was also in the
tent it was as if a psychic cork on emotional dam was popped.
Soldiers from every corner of New York, Long Island and Queens rushed toward us to express their condolences. Some wanted to touch us, as if they needed a physical connection to our sorrow and for some living proof for why they were there. One mother of two from Montana told me she signed up because of 9/11. Dozens of others told us the same thing. One young soldier showed me his metal bracelet engraved with the name of a victim he never knew and that awful date none of us will ever forget.
In fact at every encounter with the troops there would be a surge of
reservists -- firefighters and cops including many who had worked the rubble of Ground Zero, came to exchange a hometown hug. Their glassy eyes still do not allow anyone to penetrate too far inside to the place where their trauma is lodged; the trauma of a devastation far greater than anyone who hadn't been there could even imagine. It's there in me, too. I had forced my way downtown on that awful morning, convinced that I could find Neil beneath the rubble.
What I was not prepared for was to have soldiers show us the World Trade
Center memorabilia they'd carried with them into the streets of Baghdad.
Others had clearly been holding in stories of personal 9/11 tragedies which had made them enlist.
USO handlers moved us from one corner to the next so everyone could meet us. One fire brigade plucked the 9/11 group from the crowd, transporting us to their fire house to call on those who had to stand guard during the Baghdad concert. It was all about touching us and feeling the reason they were in this hell. Back at Saddam Hussein airport Kid Rock turned a "meet and greet" into an impromptu concert in a steamy airport hangar before 5000 troops.
Capt. Vargas from the Bronx tapped me on the back . He enlisted in the Army
up after some of his wife's best friends were lost at the World Trade
Center. When he glimpsed the piece of recovered metal from the Towers that I had been showing to a group of soldiers he grasped for it as if it were the Holy Grail. Then he handed it to Kid Rock who passed the precious metal through the 5000 troops in the audience. They lunged at the opportunity to touch the steel that symbolized what so many of them felt was the purpose of their mission-which puts them at risk every day in the 116 degree heat and not knowing if a sniper was going to strike at anytime.
Looking into that sea of khaki gave me chills even in that blistering heat.
To me, those troops were there to avenge the murder of my husband and 3
thousand others. When I got to the microphone I told them we had not made
this journey for condolences but to thank them and to tell them that the
families of 9/11 think of them every day. They lifts our hearts. The crowd
interrupted me with chants of " USA, USA, USA." Many wept.
What happened next left no doubt that the troops drew inspiration from our
tragedies. When I was first asked to speak to thousands of troops in Quatar, after Iraq, I wondered if it would feel like a "grief for sale" spectacle.
But this time I was quaking because I was to present the recovered WTC
recovered steel to General Tommy Franks. I quivered as I handed him the icy gray block of steel. His great craggy eyes welled up with tears. The sea of khaki fell silent. Then the proud four-star general was unable to hold back the tears which streamed down his face on center stage before 4,000 troops. As this mighty man turned from the spotlight to regain his composure I comforted him with a hug.
Now, when do I return?
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Subj: Fw: locate buddies/from Jack Rogers
Date: 7/2/2003 10:38:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: patjr@alltel.net
Hi Ben,
This is my first contact with you. I have been working on some war pictures, but in the meantime I would like to find out about my buddies in this battle in Belguim in 1945. It was early Feb., late in the evening when Co.D,3rd Bat.advanced on a tape line thru a mine field. We encountered mach. gun fire & were pinned down. Mortar fire was being directed to our rear & adv. up to our location stopping short of hitting the German bunker from which the mach. gun fire was coming. Three of us were 100ft in a swail from the bunker . Some jumped off the tape line and were killed. The three of us laid there for about 5 to 6 hrs. under constant shelling. Early the next morning the bunker was knocked out.The Germans surrendered. Looking for:
Louis Barbera Jack Dallas
F. Zeroski
Geroge Monkhouse M. Sura
Jim Ray Delbert C Randall
Everett Rice[Ricco] Ralph Rogers
Ray Vanderport
Thank You,
Jack L. Rogers,D Co.3rd Bat
517 parachute Regt
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Subj: News
Date: 7/3/2003 4:32:21 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: RCooper663
Ben
Shortly before I came to Oklahoma City I had a MRI of my pelvis and back for back trouble in the diagnosis they found an Aneurysm in my Aorta on the 11th of June my doctor called me and said he was setting up an appointment with a Vascular Surgeon since then I have had numerous test getting ready for Surgery. Feel fine just haven't had time to report on
" D" CO.
Bob Cooper
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Subj: Nobody Goin' Wobbly Here
Date: 7/3/2003 10:51:16 AM Eastern Daylight Time
From: BoomBoomAlicki
To: Ben517
"There will be no return to tyranny in Iraq. And those who threaten the
order and stability of that country will face ruin, just as surely as the
regime they once served."
- President Bush, 7/1/03
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Subj: Goin' Postal
Date: 6/28/2003 7:28:58 PM Eastern Daylight Time
From: BoomBoomAlicki
To: Ben517
"The (Post Office) started sponsoring cycling in 1996, figuring it was an
easy, uncrowded sport to break into," reports Business Week in its June 30
edition. "The company signed (cyclist Lance) Armstrong for a base salary of
$215,000 plus bonuses based on performance, he writes in his autobiography,
It's Not About the Bike. His salary is now $4 million, according to Outside
magazine."
And you wonder why the cost of stamps continues to go through the roof?
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