Kate, I have an uncle living in Slidell who served during WWII in the Navy.  He will be 90 in Sept.  Does Neil go as far as Slidell? H McCarthy ----- Original Message ----- From: "Cate Schweitzer-Toepfer" <voiceofshe@hotmail.com> To: laorlean@rootsweb.com Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 12:48:14 PM Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] Memorial Day 2012 Pat and all, The assistant archivist at Nicholls State University in Thibodaux, Neil Gilbeau, with a grant from the Library of Congress has been doing video/oral interviews with veterans of military service from southeast Louisiana. Sadly, the WW II vets are quickly disappearing so he is trying to record them first ... Wow, Pat, would your dad, and no doubt many others' fathers or grandfathers on this list have been a wonderful addition to the archive he is compiling.  He gives a copy of the DVD to the vet, sends one to the Library of Congress and keeps one for the Nicholls archives.  So far one of my relatives and a neighbor have participated and were delighted with the outcome.  And he has another relative scheduled for after June 10th. Unfortunately this grant runs out on June 30th. unless he gets an extension. If anyone has a relative (or you yourself if you fit the criteria) who'd like to participate in this program, please contact at my personal email address and I'll connect you with Neil. I also sent Norm a personal reply and note on his posting which I'm sure he won't mind I also share with you all.  Kind of an interesting footnote to his post.          Thank you for sending this along ... I actually thought Memorial Day remembrance began after WWI, interesting its roots are in the Civil War, which after all was so close to everyone's home.  You may find this an odd transition from your post, but it really isn't.  You being an Abraham Lincoln scholar, have you read the "alternate history, horror, comedy, tragedy" - Abraham Lincoln, Vampire Hunter by Seth Grahame-Smith?   I'm only about 1/3 the way through, so I'm in Abe's young life ... but it's an interesting spin on what made him the man he became and I'm guessing the end he met.  It will be a movie coming out on June 22 as well starring Benjamin Walker, Meryl Streep's son-in-law and produced/directed by the Tim Burton team.  I like this genre and still like to read real words with real messages of longer than 20 words, not just sound bites ... old fashioned I guess.  Let me know what you think and how you are doing.  Fondly,   Cate ;-} -----Original Message----- From: pat pilgrim Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 10:14 AM To: Norm Hellmers ; laorlean@rootsweb.com Subject: Re: [LAORLEAN] Memorial Day 2012 Enjoyed this very much. I am the Miro Street girl who landed in Texas. My father, William Emile Lassalle, was  a carpenter (graduate of Delegado Trades School)  who build the  PT boats at Higgins, and in WWII was stationed in San Diego (much to his chagrin..he wanted to fly!) where he could repair the boats and turn them quickly back around for action. When the war was over, he went to helicopter school and became a pilot for Bell Helicopter until he retired. He taught  the young men who flew in Vietnam and when that war was closed, my parents lived in Isfahan, Iran, and he flew for the Shah of Iran before the revolution, in the Imperial Army teaching those Irani young men to fly in fighting their war against Iraq. History is amazingly convoluted. I became interested in genealogy too late to help him get any acknowlegement for all that he did, but we remain proud of the little guy (they knicknamed him "Satchel" at Higgins because at 5 feet, two inches and about 125 pounds, his foreman said he could fit in a satchel at the plant) from Miro Street who hit the big times! Thanks for listening to his story on this Memorial Day. Pat Lassalle Pilgrim ---- Original Message ----- From: "Norm Hellmers" <n_d_hellmers@yahoo.com> To: <laorlean@rootsweb.com> Sent: Monday, May 28, 2012 9:30 AM Subject: [LAORLEAN] Memorial Day 2012 > Dear List, > > The following is an excerpt from a Washington Post editorial: > > Memorial Day was, in its beginnings, a popular observance > that developed spontaneously after the Civil War, when families began the > custom > of decorating the graves of their Union and Confederate dead on one > particular > day or another in springtime. These were people who could have had no > illusions > about the glories of war or the greatness of any Cause — not after > approximately 620,000 dead and who knows how many more physically maimed, > disabled or “casualties of the spirit.” > > Memorial Day was not then, and is not today, about victories > won, national glory or the greatness of the armed forces. It is > essentially the > fulfillment of a personal obligation to remember — to say of someone we > knew, > or loved or whose name we read on a plaque or whose troubled face we see > in a > long-ago documentary film: You lost all, or nearly all, before your time > had > come, but you shall not be forgotten. > > Norm > http://freepages.military.rootsweb.ancestry.com/~neworleans/victory_arch/one_soldier%27s_story.htm > > ------------------------------- > To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to > LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the > quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message ------------------------------- To unsubscribe from the list, please send an email to LAORLEAN-request@rootsweb.com with the word 'unsubscribe' without the quotes in the subject and the body of the message