George Bradley (automatic8@hotmail.com) will be heading up the attendance committee. We need a show of hands. If you think you even might be able to attend, please let George know now, so we can get an idea of how many people we will have. The more we can get the better the reunion will be. There is power in numbers and the prices for rooms, transportation, and meals will very in the size of the group. Please take the time to contact fellow members; this would help if you would like to have rooms next to those you served with. You can call George after 17:00 hour at 325-646-5066.

I have been contacted by a family member requesting info on someone that should have been listed in our database, but isn't.

If you have any info on the following please contact me.

Name:  David E. Imhoff

Btry:    C Btry

Dates:  March/April 68  to March/April 69 ?????

HOR:    Clymer, NY

Dec:     Feb. 15, 2007

Thanks for your help.

Redleg!

george

How to Find Your Buddy

WHITE PAGES AND PEOPLE SEARCH:

There are a number of search engines on your computer that will allow you to located people at no additional cost to you. Before you start, it is best to get all your information together. You have his name; do you know what state he was from? Some programs want the state of residence, if you don't know for sure; try to remember if your buddy had an accent that might help you narrow your search. If he has a common last name such as Smith or Jones, good luck. Try AltaVista (www.altavista.com) and use "People Finder", Yahoo (www.yahoo.com) has "People Search" and Lycos (www.lycos.com) "People" in the find field. Each of these has people search functions and will lead you to other search engines.

PERSONAL CONTACT:

If you were lucky and made contact through the method above, congratulations. One of the first questions to ask after the backslapping and tears is, "do you remember any other names, or have you had contact with any of the other guys?" This is the easiest way to quickly double or triple the names on your list. The best place to accomplish this is at a reunion of the Association. You can also go through our collection of orders and rosters.

ORDERS & ROSTERS:

Did you keep a copy of your old orders in a shoe box at home? Do you have an old diary, roster or a journal of the unit's moves or fire bases? When you received a promotion, an award, a transfer, or orders for R&R, they usually contained the names of others serving with you. The things to look for here are unit, name, and service number. The Army switched to using the Social Security Number (SSAN) as your service number after 1967. The first three digits of the SSAN identify the state or geographic region of the individual. This information may be of great help in your "people search."

OLD LETTERS AND PHOTOGRAPHS:

The letters you sent home from Vietnam can be a big help. You may have mentioned your buddies and their home towns. Photographs, especially Polaroidâ?Ts, are handy because you wrote peoples names and locations on the back before you sent them home. Dig out that old shoe box and go through the letters and pictures you have been saving. Don't forget to ask your relatives if they saved any of your letters home.

MORNING REPORTS AND MILITARY FILES:

You may have cursed your First Sergeant on many occasions, but his dedication to duty may yield a payoff to you today. The First Sergeant kept a daily roster (DA form 1) on the status of each person assigned to his unit. These records were put on microfilm, and can be obtained for each battery, for every day. This information is often requested to support a VA claim they can be obtained by writing to:

National Records Center
9700 Page Avenue
St. Louis, MO 63132

As you can imagine, it will take quite a while to get this information back. Good luck in your search. If you need any further assistance, there are members of the Association that can help and give you advice.

Why Do We Get Together?

By Dan Gillotti

30th Field Artillery Association

For many of us our association with the military ended when we took off our uniform and returned to civilian life. Some of us stayed in uniform and spent 20 or more years in the service before retiring.

Some come to a reunion in an attempt to regain a piece of our lost youth. We try to remember what it was like to be 19 or 22 again and to live with an overdose of adrenaline. To others a reunion is a chance to see old friends again and to make new friends within a group that shares many memories.

Others come for the healing that almost always occurs when old comrades finally find each other after many years. It is a time when we can celebrate the fact that we survived and pay tribute to those we lost. It is a reuniting of spirit among a group

41 years after his heroics, pilot to get Medal of Honor

Saturday, February 24, 2007

By Milan Simonich, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette


Forty-one years have passed since Army helicopter pilot Bruce Crandall
helped rescue 70 wounded soldiers from a raging battle in Vietnam. On
Monday, at age 74, he at last will receive the Medal of Honor, America's
highest award for combat valor, from President Bush.

"It's a tremendous honor, and the time doesn't really matter," Mr. Crandall
said in an interview.

His wingman, Ed "Too Tall to Fly" Freeman, the other helicopter pilot
involved in the rescue, received the Medal of Honor in 2001, some 35 years
after the mission.

The two have been as close as brothers for half a century. Mr. Crandall said
he felt proud and overjoyed when Mr. Freeman finally was awarded the Medal
of Honor.

"He deserved it because he volunteered for the mission," Mr. Crandall said.
"I was the commander, and that means there was a different responsibility
for me."

But after another six years of review, the Army decided that Mr. Crandall
also deserves the Medal of Honor for his heroism in saving dozens of men in
the Army's 7th Cavalry.

The battle and rescue on Nov. 14, 1965, became the subject of books and the
2002 movie "We Were Soldiers." Actor Greg Kinnear portrayed Mr. Crandall,
and Mel Gibson played Lt. Col. Hal Moore, commander of the 7th Cavalry.

Mr. Crandall, then a major, led the 16 chopper crews with Company A of the
cavalry's 229th Assault Helicopter Battalion. During the day of the great
rescue, he flew for 141/2 hours and completed 22 missions to and from the
Battle of la Drang Valley, bullets flying all around him.

"What I remember now is how long and how hellish it was. It kept getting
worse as the day went on," Mr. Crandall said.

Joseph Galloway, then a 24-year-old wire service reporter covering the
battle, would later co-author a book with Mr. Moore about the battle. They
recounted how two U.S. choppers were downed by enemy fire. Mr. Crandall's
helicopter also was hit, wounding his crew chief and killing his radio
operator.

U.S. infantry soldiers remained on the battlefield, and Mr. Crandall was not
about to leave them there to be killed.

He asked for a volunteer to fly alongside him in a second helicopter, back
into the teeth of the bullets. Too Tall Freeman, a captain who stood 6 feet,
4 inches, did not hesitate. He wanted the job.

"I really didn't want Ed to volunteer," Mr. Crandall said. "I had no great
desire for him to be the one with me. My kids called him Uncle Ed."

Mr. Moore, now a retired three-star general, said the mission meant life or
death for dozens of U.S. soldiers on the ground. In his recommendation of
Mr. Crandall for the Medal of Honor, Mr. Moore wrote: "If the air bridge
failed, the embattled men of the 1st Battalion 7th Cavalry would certainly
die in much the same way George Armstrong Custer's cavalrymen died at Little
Big Horn -- cut off, surrounded by numerically superior forces, overrun and
butchered to the last man."

Mr. Crandall said the strategy of two helicopter pilots combining on the
rescue was rooted in practical reasons. "If we had two aircraft, that would
split the artillery fire and give us a better chance."

On their flights in and out of the battle, the two pilots delivered rifles,
ammunition and water, then picked up wounded men and flew them to safety.

Army helicopters were a new part of warfare then. Nobody knew what to expect
from the pilots, a factor that may have contributed to the long delay in
them receiving the Medal of Honor.

When President Bush presented Too Tall Freeman with the medal in 2001, he
said another president from Texas, Lyndon Johnson, should have had the
privilege. Mr. Johnson was in office during the 1960s, his term continuing
for three years after the Battle of la Drang Valley.

Mr. Crandall had to wait even longer. But, he said, he did not mind because
he never dwelled on the Medal of Honor or any other symbol of what he did.

"I don't think about that day now," he said of the battle. "I remember the
relationships from that day."

Plus, he said, others have waited much longer for the Medal of Honor and
never been able to enjoy the moment. In particular, he mentioned former
President Teddy Roosevelt, who posthumously received the Medal of Honor 102
years after he led volunteer soldiers in the battles of Kettle and San Juan
hills.

Mr. Crandall, now retired and living in Manchester, Wash., figures he is a
lucky man in every respect.

"I am 74, and I've already lived 18 years longer than anybody in my family,"
he said.

A fine baseball player in high school in Washington state, he dreamed of
being drafted by the New York Yankees. He was drafted all right, but not by
a big-league team. Instead, the Army took him in 1953.

No one could have known it then, but that moment did more than change his
life. On one horrible November day in 1965, it saved the lives of 70 others in Viet Nam.