Rattlers and Firebirds,

What a weekend! I knew it would be great, but it was ten times better than I could have imagined. The feelings I felt in that room have only been felt by me one other time in my life. That was when I first saw my family upon returning home from Vietnam. Seeing the faces of the guys as they first saw each other was just something else. My own emotions were running wild. It seemed like I was on the verge of crying all weekend. No one had more fun than I did.

We had 48 former "Rattlers" and "Firebirds" in attendance from 23 states. There were 37 pilots and 11 enlisted men there. Our group picture has 47 men in it. Jim Collins had to leave early to attend his parents 50th wedding anniversary.

On Wednesday after our- reunion I received a call from Wally Dunning, former Rattler 1-5. One of my letters finally reached him. He was very disappointed in missing the reunion, but vowed to make the next one. Wally's address is listed below. Please add him to your present address roster.

For the benefit of future reunions, I am going to pass along information on how to attempt to locate former members of our company. If you have any old orders of any kind from our unit, you may note other men listed with their serial or social security numbers on the same orders. Write each person you are trying to find a letter asking him to contact you. Seal this letter in an envelope with the guys full name and serial and/or social security number on the outside, put a stamp on the letter. Put this letter into an envelope along with $3.50 for each letter to be forwarded. Make your check or money order out to U.S. Treasury and send it to the address at the end of this letter asking for forwarding action. They will allow you a maximum of ten letters to be forwarded, but this is a one time service only. In other words, if you send two letters and $7.00 to them, you cannot send more later. You only get one chance. Also be very patient. It took 14 months for one of my letters to reach Hal Bowen. But in addition to Hal Bowen, this is how I located George Jackson, Larry lackey, and John Cervinski.

As for a reproduction of the movie footage we shot at the reunion, the cost per tape will run $16.00 each including mailing costs. I will need to know exactly how many tapes to order, so if you want one please let me know by March 10th. This tape is definitely amateur footage, but has the entire memorial service on it and the TV spots that were shown that night about us.

Our reunion committee consists of Ron Seabolt, Bill Keller, Dave O'Quinn, Hal Bowen, Ned Flecke and Ken Wiegand. Please feel free to contact any of these men with info or ideas you might have. After our open meeting about a future reunion, a possible reunion site of Las Vegas was brought up. It has potential because of inexpensive lodging and easy air accessibility. Washington D.C. has the wall, and either Atlanta or St. Louis will have the AAAA convention in 1995. These are things we need to be thinking about.

I hope you enjoy this group photo and I also hope everyone is properly identified. Thanks for being there guys!

Wally Dunning
5506 Hamilton St.
Sacramento, CA. 95842
(916) 332-8701

US Army Reserve Personnel Center
9700 Page Blvd. DARP-VSE=VS/BJP
St. Louis, MO 63132-5200<