Past Reunion
The Society held its 2010 annual reunion at the Crowne Plaza Riverwalk in San Antonio, Texas from August 25-29. The hotel itself turned out to be a bit small for the final number of attendees - we had over 1,175 in attendance, including 300 people attending for the first time and a terrific turnout of 200 Active Duty soldiers. The hotel worked very hard keeping pace with our group and did a fine job. The Command Posts worked out well, and everything but the banquet went without a hitch. After working through the challenge of banquet space restrictions, changes have been made for the future to ensure that we never encounter that situation again.
Everyone seemed to enjoy the tours as usual. Our members like to sightsee in the city we are staying in. We also included a tour to the Brooke Army Hospital. The Welcome Party was fun and a chance for members to talk and meet some first timers in a group setting. We also had an extremely moving Memorial Service. As you know we lost our Executive Director Ed Burke in August, as well as one of our members Luis Landin at the reunion. They and all the fallen comrades continue to be missed. The General Membership meeting was informative as always, with reports from Commanding General Petersen and museum director Paul Herbert as well as the Society update. We would also like to thank General Watts for stepping in and overseeing the reunion. The Saturday night banquet was held in Ed Burke’s honor. The winners of the raffle were: first place Ray Hahn winning $2500, second place Michael Kovacic winning $1000 and third place Joseph Vandervest, Jr. winning $500. Congratulations to all three.
We had a few special guests with us, including the Commanding General (Rear) Petersen and his wife Karen as well as CSM (Rear) Buddy Wallace and his wife Lefty. The NCO of the Year was Sergeant Felix Nunez, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 101st Brigade Support Battalion, 1st Heavy Brigade Combat Team. The Soldier of the Year was Specialist Willie Shepherd, 988th Military Police Company, 92nd Military police, 4th maneuver Enhancement Brigade at Ft Leonard Wood, Missouri. We also hosted a group from the Warrior Transition battalion at Brooke Army Medical Center.
As always we were very happy to see our old friends again as well as having the opportunity to meet some new ones. We have also moved to secure the next two years for our annual reunion. We will be in Buffalo, NY in 2011, and have just contracted for the 2012 reunion in Memphis, TN, August 1-5 and for 2013 in Jacksonville, FL, July 31-Aug 4. We are looking forward to the upcoming reunions. Hope to see you there!
See pictures from past reunions