Commander's Column: Message from the Commander (3/14/09)
As I look back over my 84-year old lifetime I can remember a no more wonderful and terrible period than the two and a half years that I was a member of the 82nd Engineer Combat Battalion during World War two. I had just turned 18 years old and finished high school when I left my small town home for an unknown journey.

It was wonderful in that I became a part of a group of 150 young men my age who would become like brothers to me. We supported each other in every way 24 hours a day, every day. My favorite school subject had always been geography, and here I was to begin a life that would take me from my small town in New York to Texas, Louisiana, Algeria, Morocco, England, France, Belgium. Holland and Germany. If not for the inconvenience of the war, it would have been the 2 and 1/2 year tour of a lifetime. It was full of surprises. Most of the time we had little knowledge of the immediate future. We took our first 16-day ocean voyage to North Africa. That was soon followed by a three day rail trip to Casablanca. Then a second sailing to England. All through the ten months of combat we had each other for support 24 hours a day. All who were wounded fought to return to our battalion, the thought of being sent to another army unit was a death sentence.

That period was also terrible. The constant uncertainty kept each of us in a state on anxiety, never knowing what tomorrow might bring. The daily effort to keep up with the action and still protect ourselves was exhausting. We learned to watch out for each other and sleep in the knowledge that our buddies would protect us. Normal daily activities like brushing our teeth, changing to clean clothes, eating a balanced diet three time a day, sleeping indoors on a mattress were all forgotten. Each of us was brave on occasion and scared to death on another. We caused and saw violent death daily for many months on end. We celebrated briefly when a given task such as a bridge crossing was completed.

When the war ended we each went our different ways. Our post-war lives tended to erase the memories of that wonderful and terrible period. It would be 40 years before a group of us began to have annual reunions. Slowly that group of about ten men were able to locate and contact others and continue annual reunions. Eleven years after that first reunion, they "found" me, living in Florida. It was a wonderful day when I took that phone call "out of the blue". I attended that next reunion and every reunion since then.

My wish is that every member who can travel attend our next reunion. We want to shake your hand one more time and thank you for watching our back so many years ago. We have you to thank for the years you have given us. 

Please come.

Doc