Tom Cross
To All:
Here it is and tailored for our Historical Heritage Project needs. A large quantity of material has already been deposited at this location by 517th PRCT personnel past and present. This includes the working papers of authors William B. Breuer (Geronimo, and Operation Dragoon), Gerald Astor (Battling Buzzards, and The Bloody Forest). Also Dick Seitz's Oral Military History and seven footlockers of Mel Zais's military and personal papers, Colonel Graves's personal military papers are there too plus many other personal papers from 517th PRCT Personnel.
We can put this to a vote using the new e-mail voting and notification system being developed for the Officers and Directors of the Association by Ben and Bob Barrett and thus get a jump start on a project long overdue. I also suggest that Howard Hensleigh be officially designated as the Chairman of the 517th PRCT Historical Committee so that we can get started on this and other historical projects with a minimum of delay. It is fish or cut bait time for me as well as for others of our group that may be aware of what their medical future holds for them. Let's get started so we can hand over our Heritage Project to our Auxiliary Association in due course.
Regards, Tom Cross
AN OPEN LETTER TO
VETERANS OF WWII AND THEIR ASSOCIATIONS
FROM THE US ARMY HERITAGE AND
EDUCATION CENTER
The Army Heritage and Education Center (AHEC) resides at Carlisle
Barracks, Pennsylvania. Its purpose, simply put, is to tell the Army's
story. To do this, it is organized into the US Army Military History
Institute and the US Army Heritage Museum. With these key
components, AHEC serves as the Army's chief repository of historical information
and is part of the new National Museum of the US Army. Thus, we are
a library, archives, and a museum, all working together in telling the
Army's story to the nation. And we tell it one soldier at a time.
We tell the Army's story though its soldiers. Our archival collections contain more than 100,000 stories of soldiers, from the privates as well as the generals. These soldier stories are told through the text, images, and objects associated with their service. Their diaries, letters, photos, uniforms, equipment, souvenirs, and memoirs tell the tales to the stream of researchers who visit our holdings. Moreover, our soldier stories are supplemented by our other holdings, which include a half-million historical publications and documents, over a million photographs, and about 45,000 artifacts -- all concentrated on military history and US Army history.
To develop and enrich our collection, we solicit your story. We seek your military experiences and your service-related materials. Here they will be properly processed, organized, preserved, and made available for viewing and research by untold future generations of Americans. By providing us with your story and by donating unconditionally your materials, you help us tell the Army's story of World War II.
And we are not just soliciting individual veterans but also the collective papers of the associations which they have joined for over sixty years. Already in our collection are the papers of veterans associations spanning other wars, from the 1846-48 War with Mexico to the Korean War. World War II is especially well represented. Among the associations already here are those of the Veterans of the Battle of the Bulge and of the China-Burma-India Theater, along with the 42nd, 91st, 99th, and 106th Infantry Divisions, the 38th Combat Engineer and 602nd Tank Destroyer Battalions, and OSS Detachment 101. Expected soon are the association papers of the 11th and 13th Airborne Divisions, the 642nd Tank Destroyer Battalion, and the 44th Bombardment Group. We welcome more.
Interested in adding your story? Please contact the AHEC Registrar, Greg Statler, at (717) 245-3094 or greg.statler@carlisle.army.mil. You can write us too at 950 Soldiers Drive, Carlisle, PA 17013-5021. Our website awaits your visit at www.carlisle.army.mil/ahec/index.htm.
I left out part of the link of Red Skelton's Pledge of Allegiance in last Mail Call. Here it is now.- Ben