A good weekend with friends...

Last weekend we had a reunion of my old MP battalion.  What a great time to see some old friends and catch up on what has been happening with them since we were last in uniform together.

On Friday night we were hosted by the Gahanna Ohio VFW  for a social.  There were 12 people in attendance we had a real laid-back gathering.  Most of the guys looked pretty good albeit a bit older.  Some looked pretty much like they did in the old days, but some looked a bit different -- lost hair, gray hair, maybe a pound or five too much.  But it was a good time and kicked off the weekend.

A couple of "off duty" MPs dropped by Friday evening.

Saturday's golfing outing was held at The Bent Tree Golf Course.  It was a pretty nice track and in pretty good shape.  Despite the off and on rain which covered us throughout the day, we played pretty well.  There were 7 of us and we had a real good time.

The dinner was held at the 94th Aero Squadron located on the grounds of the Columbus airport.  It is a really nice place -- an old French chateau that is made to look like it is back in the WWI era.  They have the whole inside decorated with antique pictures, and "things" from that time.  The 94th Aero Squadron was Eddie Rickenbacker's squadron, and the Rickenbacker name lives on in this area at the Rickenbacker Air National Guard Base.  I kidded people that it takes about a half an hour to go to the bathroom because you spend that much time just looking at all the pictures and displays.

The food was great and we had 33 people attending.

Bart served as the emcee for the evening.  He says he could still fit in his Blues!

There were a couple of guys who missed the dinner, but we raised one to their health.  The agenda called for drinks at 6:30 and dinner from 7-10.  The evening didn't break up until after 11:00 and that was only because the restaurant wanted to get the place cleaned.  Otherwise, we would probably have gone on for a while longer.  I am sure it would have if the patio had been open and it had stopped raining.

As I looked around the room that night and thought of all the things I/we had done together throughout our military careers, it struck me that we had seen and made history all the while.  Not the same kind of history as they did in World Wars I and II, and not the kind that was done in Korea or Vietnam.  But ours was also something to think about, reflect on, grieve about in some cases, and laugh about in others.  While some of our history was made as Reservists, and some on active duty, it was the story of our nation over the past 40-some years.  Our fingerprints, especially in the MP Corps, were on everything from the Cuban refugee crisis to the cold war, to the horrors of 9/11 and two wars that came from that day.  So what a treat it was to sit down with those who actually did it.  None of these guys and gals was bragging, or pounding their chests.  Rather, they were just happy to be in the company of others who understood what they did, appreciated it and now live with their memories and nightmares.  I suspect that our fathers had times like this after their wars -- times they thought they weren't special or heroes, but just glad to have been through it and able to spend time with their "buddies."

We plan to do this again in two years.  We'll open it up to more members of the battalion and hope to see more of our friends.  Until then...

The purpose of life is not to be happy - but to matter, to be productive, to be useful, to have it make some difference that you have lived at all.  (Leo Rosten)

Hooah