Melbourn 1997 Membership Recruiting Drive: Any of you who have
attended one of the membership recruitment drives around the country
will know how great the fellowship can be. Whether at Melbourn,
Florida (October), or at Kokomo, Indiana (September), there is a feeling
that you will never experience any where. Here are where total strangers,
bound by a common experience, come together and are instantly bonded.
Each year that I have attended the reunion at Melbourne, Florida, the
better they get. I look forward to renewing old friendships with people
that I have not seen since the last recruitment drive. [Photo:
Kokomo, Indiana (September)]
How will you ever find anyone in a massive place like that? When I arrived
in town the first place I went was to Wickem Park and the first person
I ran into was our president, John Langley, and while we were talking
who should walk up abut our V.P., Mike Daoust. It seems that SP's seem
to attract each other without trying. [Photo Left: Mike Daoust,
John Langley, Dave Dobson]
The next morning I returned to
attend the opening ceremony and met up with several other SP's who I
had known from years past and some that I had never met, all were interested
in VSPA. As we stood listening to Sammy Davis, Congressional Medal of
Honor Receipient, and to observing the opening,I felt a certain pride
in what had been accomplished by all of those who were there. It felt
real good when a WWII, D-Day Vet, came up and shook my hand. When someone
asked for help with crowd control to make room for the color guard it
was a Security Policeman that jumped up to volunteer help.
There were a lot of old songs and
music that brought back some old memories and most of them were pleasant
memories. When Chris Noel got up on the stage and sang, You are My
Hero for all the vets it even brought a tear to most of the eyes
around me. She had changed since I saw her pictures plastered all over
Phu Cat, but then again so had we. Someone said, "We all have
gotten older, haven't we?" I remembered that she traveled around
Nam and entertained live as well as her radio show, A Date with Chris,
and all the time there was a $10,000 bounty on her head. We were not
the only ones with a bounty payable to anyone who killed them.
It seemed that every where I went
that day I would meet another SP. By the time I met up with Mike Daoust
that second day, I had given out most of the VSPA cards that I had with
me. Mike had handed out a large number of the reunion posters he had
with him. In one of the areas I met a former dog man that I had worked
with over there. I left that day with a warm happy feeling.
As I arrived the next morning for
John Steer's church service, the first person that I met when I got
out of my car was someone with a VSPA patch on his cammies, Pat Dunn.
As Chris walked by I pointed her out to Pat and being a good SP he called
her over. He has proof that he talked with Chris Noel, and so does everyone
else.
As we sat there waiting for the
services to begin, I looked around and there were twelve SP's in the
area where we were sitting. When I first attended a reunion at Melbourne,
I had only met one other SP, John Langley, and a few Air Force people.
This year I met up with at least twenty SP's and more Air Force people
than I can remember. It seems to grow more every year and we are beginning
to let our identity be known. We even had an SP in the march that started
for Wasington D.C. that day.
When my wife and I started for
home, she asked me if I was glad that I came? I had almost backed out
at the last minute because my bowling team needed me, at least I thought
they did. The fact was that I needed that reunion more than I needed
to bowl. For those of you who have not yet been to a reunion, make every
effort to get to one.
