We're not going to go there.
We're going to go over there.
I'm not going.
No, you're not.
Sorry, buddy.
I'm going to go over there.
We're going to make it today.
No.
I'm going to go over there.
No.
I'm going to go over there.
All the places there that I can see over there.
What, are you going to leave?
That's our table.
I'm going to go over there.
So what?
But you will be back in 20 minutes.
Are you serious?
I don't want to leave.
You're not going to leave?
No.
I'm going to leave.
We are completely dead.
Damn, what a nuisance.
That's the most他媽...
we really have the Module of Justice.
Then we have that one where the
We're here.
You're already 40 seconds.
You're not.
We're here.
Oh yeah.
Yeah.
Yes.
I never did because I never been in one.
But I listened to this one and this guy.
Is that following you, that's the feedback?
You better leave that speaker here again.
This guy started this game show and he took what he said.
He said, now, this one is about a horse.
Everybody knows Roy Rogers.
Everybody.
He said the first person that calls in and gives me the name of Roy Rogers' horse wins the first time.
So this lady called in and she said, well, his horse's name triggered.
And he says, oh, yes, ma'am.
She said, you are just right, that you have just won yourself a one-horse of horse manure.
Would you like to try for two?
Yes, ma'am.
Looks like an old horse.
Yeah, it's a good thing we didn't get to it.
It wasn't too bad, huh?
Probably made a lot of trips.
Is it over here?
I can't help you.
I'm sorry, I can't help you.
Coming out.
I got it.
One, two, three.
I got it.
Everybody.
OK.
Take it easy there, Scott.
There's a slide going over there.
I'm riding.
There's a slide going in here.
One, two, three, and then what I did.
I'm going to go back to the slide.
Very smart, stay in here.
Keep calm here.
Wet my whistle.
When you get down there, they said it's about the size of a football field.
About a mile.
If you find out there's restroom in there now.
Go that way, go that way, take your picture.
I can't bend my knees one more time.
This is right off the mark.
I'll just go around and see what I can do.
I'm going to go back to the slide.
Hey, you're getting everybody.
Yeah, apparently.
Go for it.
Hey, ladies.
I think so too.
All the ladies want to look around like that.
I don't like that.
That's good of you.
I see.
Now she's in the back.
You need a leash.
Oh, gee.
No more.
Oh, gee.
They record 1187.
Oh, okay.
We got an E and two diets.
Let me see what I got.
0037.
Wait a minute.
Okay.
We got an E and two diets.
Oh, you're welcome, people.
I never read your ID.
Well, I knew it.
Almost everybody had a southern accent, but I didn't know where they were from.
Because they were very popular.
I'm not scared to not say that to myself, and I don't want nobody to say it.
I'm a little bit crazy.
I've been a space man my whole life.
I don't care if it's the UKA way, it's the sign out or whatever the order.
I'm going down to the UKA way.
You're never going to get anywhere near me.
I can't break your ground.
I've been in the UKA way for a long time.
I'm sorry, you know, we've got other stuff.
We've got the North Center, and then you can't.
What did you say?
You're going to say what you got in Atlanta.
I just want to die here.
Birmingham.
We've got three, I think, probably still eating.
Oh, camera work.
The only one I want to add that isn't on there is that one of Harry has done, has done last time.
This right over here is John Lipps.
I'm going home.
We have.
I'm trying to call it.
I'm trying to trace him down.
He apologized for not being with us Thursday as he had promised and wanted to be.
He would have much rather been with us than where he was.
I'm trying to trace him down.
Dear Lord and Father of mankind, our prayer this evening is one of thanksgiving.
We thank you for all the many good gifts of your grace that you bestow upon us daily.
For country, courage, family, friendships, food, and faith.
And for us never to forget thy love to us.
It comes with the light of the morning and it remains with the light of the stars at night.
It looks up to us in the beauty of a flower.
It shines upon us in the style of a friend.
We thank thee for the wonderful association with these our friends of many years.
And for the joy of newfound friends.
We thank thee for the pleasant memories of our dear departed comrades.
And ask thy blessing upon their families and their loved ones.
As we grow older, give us the grace to realize that life begins again with each new sunrise.
Now bless this food for our bodies and our lives for thy service.
Help us to be more thankful and to link every beautiful thing with thee.
We ask these things in thy holy and gracious name. Amen.
Have your program, your pink program.
On one sheet there you will notice that we have quite a list of those who are not with us, cannot be with us today.
At this time I will ask each and every one of you to bow your head and have a half a minute silent prayer.
I wish everybody was killed while we were in the area.
I wish you were still killed.
This is all that's left over here and a few others.
I'm not going to tell you my way of working.
I live in the darkest part of Minnesota.
It's called Wensup, Minnesota, South Central.
Beautiful place to live in.
While I was with the service and with the unit, I was just basically in service.
I was in service for a short-term and a long-term service company.
I was in service for a service company and then went to supply.
I was doing a book work for the supply company.
So what else do you want to hear about?
That's about half a dollar.
I'm a BKH on 24th, retired, returned to the mission at Wensup.
I'm a mighty mission.
Thank you.
I serve with K-Cup on 24th, retired, retired.
My name is John Sayward-Roddington.
I'm retired on 24th.
I'm retired and most loyal to the star.
My profession was a sign pen for 42 years.
I worked for a pharmaceutical company for 21 years.
For Pfizer, Incorporated.
Most likely people had a Pfizer.
The world of the world.
The stocks are $62,500.
They're going up.
You got three little products.
You want to make money?
You can buy Pfizer stocks.
A, F, I, D, D, and D.
I'll be waiting on someone here.
I'll be waiting on someone who's up a little.
Any questions?
What outfit were you in?
I was with Sergeant Tuzzi here.
What?
What's your name, Tuzzi?
I'm with the Lord.
Lieutenant, sorry.
If the county has upset, I'll pay five dollars to the one that gets those numbers.
If the one with the nine, anybody get the hundred?
If you get it, I'll give you five bucks.
If somebody did, I'll give you three.
If somebody did get it, I will reveal that answer.
Thank you.
Somebody told me the other day, said, what are you, yesterday when I was out here in the room out there, said, what are you doing out here?
Said, who are you?
And I told him I'm Floyd Rod, president of the 31st Division of Society.
And he said, well, you're not old enough to be in World War II, are you?
When you left, I said, when did that war go on, sir?
I said, I think I went in by 1940, the latter part of 1940.
But I was with the 66th Division in World War II, Korea.
After that, I joined the 31st Division National Guards and was in the 33rd Battalion Headquarters.
And I retired out in 1977 as Sergeant Major of D4.
I was there from the 31st for a long time in 1968.
And I was there for a long time in 1968.
And I'm retired Civil Service in 40 also.
Service Company, 944.
I'm retired from the 944.
I'm a little bit mentally damaged, but I'm quite a hire.
I retired as a custom home builder for five years.
And we're in the morning light.
I'm a light fireman.
I own the Fire Department in Washington.
How was your life?
Get better.
Service Company, 944.
I'm a fireman and a son and a grandson.
And I'm a soldier.
I'm a C-124.
I'm retired like the rest of us.
And I'm going to be in my comrades.
I'm not sure if it's a service company.
I'm retired.
I guess I'm a war soldier.
I'm from Alabama.
This is my sweetie over here, Joyce, for soon to be 47 years.
I served with Service Company, 124th Infantry.
And I am retired.
I'm not retired like the rest of us.
And I was with H Company, 124th, from 1942 to 1945.
This is my second wife, Fran, here.
Unfortunately, my first wife died.
And we started a new life together that I really hadn't before.
I've been retired for about a little over three years.
I worked for a supermarket chain, which I was head of the old perishable division,
which was the meats and groats, meats and dairies, cold cuts, and fish and beef.
You have it.
I forgot to mention I was with the 124th Service Company.
I started with the service company as food distribution, all the other companies.
And then the last year, I started cooking sligget of hash browns.
This is why everybody looks so good today.
My name is John Hooper.
This is my wife, Mertis.
We live in the private part of Iowa, which is about 18 miles from here.
We're happy to see you, I think, in Montgomery.
And we're happy to help you have a nice day.
I was a member of the service company, 167th Infantry, when the mobile lines now are imported.
I was secretary of the 167th Mobile Lines in the Korean War.
I retired with a master guard and also a full-time technician,
which is currently still serving the part also.
I'm a simple different. I'm going to the military also.
But I've been enjoying my career with the military.
I've made some life-long friends.
I like to see a lot of them go by the wayside.
I love the new Colonel this way, the partial lady.
He used to die in the fiduciary and bear the seal all the time.
And since he was the last of the Union, he's been doing quite a bit of partial labor.
All of them knew him.
He lived in Birmingham.
So as time goes along, we leave many combatants.
It's kind of sad to see that.
But the association's been wonderful.
And then you hear my name, really.
And I was first put at the 124 and the 154.
And later on, I became, and I'm not retired yet.
I'm still working.
And I'm a baker.
And I'm still working there.
And I was a personal baker for General Frank von Seiber at Hiroshima, Japan.
And I ran a small mall there.
We got out of the service company, 124.
I don't know if that's 42 or 43 or something.
But I was going to be retired, but I still worked.
And this ran and did.
I went to a few reunions, but I hate it.
I'll try to be at the rest of them.
I'm the 24th from Black Blue.
I'm a retired, of course.
I joined the National Guard about a year before the war broke out.
And you know where all the vets and the patrollers.
Soapy Niles.
I'm Paul Telleritt, service company.
This is Shiver Nips.
My sex therapist.
Her real name is Ruth, really.
This is our daughter, Sandy.
I'm from the 124th aid company.
And I'm retired and not living in Fort Worth.
I'm not using air conditioning.
My name is John Lentz.
I'm from Ireland, New York, upstate.
My beautiful wife, Tracy.
I go for major last door.
I'm a service company.
I'm a regimental supply.
That was my job.
My name is Frank Southegram.
My wife goes for me.
And I'm from Omaha, Nebraska.
I put my time in with service company.
And I have one son and two grandchildren.
My son is filling in the time for me.
He's a career army man.
Just last week I went on a network campus to see if it is
good enough for him for motion.
My name is George Gonzalez.
My wife Linda and my sister in law Mary.
We're from California.
And I spent part of my time with that company, 124.
And I was transferred over to a service company.
And I'm also retired postal service.
I'm Dave Bailey from Plant City, Florida, the world's
winter strawberry capital.
My wife, Eloise.
We are retired educators.
I had 40 years.
She had 38.
I've taught everything from third level through the
college level except junior high.
And she taught class.
I like that she paints in oils and water colors.
We have a small grove.
I like to watch orange trees grow.
And I grow chameleons.
I have them from one foot high to 20 or 30 feet high,
about a couple hundred.
And you've heard the old saying, if I thought I'd die
tomorrow, I'd plant a tree today.
If I thought I'd die tomorrow, I'd plant a chameleon today.
I'm from Constable Asylum, service company 124.
And he and I dispensed parts for our regiment 10-12,
parts are going.
Not surprisingly, I'm put in about 43 years in
auto parts business.
And I've been retired now for eight years.
I served the service company on 124th entity.
This is my wife Sally.
I got out of the service.
I went into the automobile repair business,
re-smoking until I retired in 1979.
I am now retired.
I'm enjoying life.
I'm fishing and hunting.
You know, they talk about all these interviews and all
these pretty girls.
But maybe some of us get like the old boy that lived next
door to me.
He gets up there, you know, and one night he comes in from
work and his wife had reached home about 30 minutes before
he did and she met him at the front door and she said,
honey, I got a real good idea there.
He says, well, let me hear it.
She says, I'll tell you what, for the past 10 years,
we go to work, we get up, we come back home, we eat,
we go to watch TV, we go to bed.
And she says, it's just a regular old cycle,
round and round.
She says, I think what we should do tonight is get out
here and just have a big time, kick up our heels like we
used to and make the time.
The old boy thought that for a minute and he said, you
know, he says, that's a real good idea.
If you get back in before I do, how about leaving the
front door right there?
You know, we have some special people around that do
things for us.
We have a lady here, Betty McCarra.
I'm going to ask her to come up to the podium and have
something to say to us.
She is what we call our birthday lady.
She mails us all birthday cards and we appreciate it.
I know I do because it always reminds Sally that it's my
birthday and she buys me something.
I really got confused today.
I was eating in the restaurant there and Art said that he
couldn't finish his chicken.
And I said, I didn't have chicken.
I had a pork chop.
He said, oh, no, that was chicken.
I figured it was some chicken.
And then when I sat down next to Sally, she said, I nearly
choked on the chicken today.
I said, I didn't have chicken.
She said, oh, yes, you did.
I wasn't a pork chop.
I had a chicken or pork chop.
I didn't have bone or leg.
That's it, huh?
Yes, and Mr. Matusi, he vouched that I did some pork
chops.
Now, oh, the last time I went to give a speech it was a
hurricane.
Everybody left the room.
But now, the birthday party is growing all really properly.
And we have five new members this year.
And two of them are here, Mr. Flugey and Mr. Klaas.
And right now we have 339 members in the birthday club.
And they come from all over, as far as Hawaii.
And they come from 38 states.
And the most birthdays, oh, and one man passed away last
year, and I got a note from his wife.
And she said, who the hell are you?
Oh, that's what she thought.
And we have the most birthdays in July.
Forty-five people are born in July.
And May is 34.
We've made a trip through this world and we find there's
three kinds of people.
There are those that will make things happen, those that
watch things happen, and there are those that wonder what
happened.
I'm not going to do all the talking tonight, and I'm going
to ask one Henry Flugey to come up here.
Yes, you.
You paid me $10 last night, and that's your fee.
To be here today, this has been the first meeting I've
attended.
I happened to pick up the article in one of the veterans
magazines, and I immediately called Joe Walers, sent him a
letter, I forgot what I think I called him.
And I said, I'll be here.
Come hell or high water, I'll be here.
So, Fran and I made it.
And we don't tend to miss any more.
We'll be to the rest of them as long as we can.
I've enjoyed the drive down here.
We spent some time.
We were in no rush.
And when we leave here, we'll probably take a couple more
weeks and drive around the country.
I remember some of the good things that happened in
Service Company.
I remember old Pappy Drake.
Him and I, we ran over some booze once in a while.
And I've got to tell you a story about this.
Pappy and I, we had a stilt together for a short time.
Best customers was Major Coons and Captain McBride,
a lot of other people here.
And it was one sergeant in, I think it was D Company.
He says, you know, what would you say?
You make plenty of money already.
The trouble is you couldn't send it home.
It was just paper money.
He said, I want to buy your hat because I want to see
what I can do with it.
Because I can get the materials and all that stuff.
So I said, I'll think about it.
Well, anyway, about three days later, Captain McBride
says to me, he says, Flute, the FBI is looking around
for you guys and have stilt.
He said, you want to take some good advice?
Get out of it.
You know, and I always believe word to the wise is sufficient.
So here I come up to D Company and get this guy out.
So I said, hey, you still interested in buying
the hat and the stilt?
Oh, yeah.
I'm sorry.
How much do you want for it?
He says, $500.
Paid me $500.
Three days later, he was in a break.
Nice job.
I'm a businessman.
I've always been a businessman.
I can tell you a couple of jokes.
That's all I'm relying on.
All right.
About the what?
The island.
Well, I am considered a world traveler.
I've been to as far as 42 countries.
There's not an island.
There's not many islands left that I wasn't on.
Because I've been on four cruises.
And as you know, when you go on a cruise, you're going to hit
four or five islands, six islands.
I like cruises very much, but the thing is this.
You go on a cruise and you come home, you get 10 pounds.
Then you can never lose it.
That's why I eliminate cruises, the head sport now.
And that's about it, I guess.
Yeah.
All right.
Thank you.
I wish you well.
Introduce you to the man we all love, Juan General Mo.
OK, over the years, it's been great.
It's been fun, interesting.
And when we get together, what great fun we have.
Memories and life back.
I was thinking and checking to see how many were here from the different states.
And according to what I wrote down here hurriedly, we have 18 states represented tonight.
So why don't we start first with Texas.
Anybody here from Texas just ran.
We did have a couple here that had to leave.
They were here through the week and they left last night.
And Mississippi.
We did have a couple from Mississippi.
They were both from that company and they had a great time.
Alabama.
There we go.
Georgia.
I did up higher there.
We got two there.
Florida.
There's the N.
How about Kansas?
OK.
How many have been to two reunions?
OK, now here's what one can do when we go on from there.
Just keep standing.
And then when I go into three reunions, keep standing if you've been in the third reunion and so on.
So let's get everybody up here.
Have been here for two reunions.
Well, you was there.
That's what I didn't know about.
I didn't run out of any large red.
That one was here.
OK.
That helped us as much as possible.
A couple reunions we didn't get any help from.
There wasn't anybody visiting with us from the 31st Infantry Division Society.
We have John Hooper and his wife.
And we have Lord Rice.
Lord has asked me to spend a little time up at the podium here.
And I'm going to ask you to come up here at this time.
I just want to say that, you know, I heard about this when I was starting the 31st Infantry Dixie Division.
And reunion, when we got organized and got a staff, we made it the Society.
Which this will be the fifth reunion for us coming up here in Montgomery on the 19th and 20th of this month.
And as three weeks ago we had representatives coming in from 23 states, from California to New Jersey, from Texas to Illinois.
And some of the states in between.
Where I feel real good about it.
We, I don't have the anticipation that I thought, and the mixture and the enthusiasm that I had, that I thought that we would have at this time, Joe.
I was looking for 300 to 400 people for this fifth reunion.
But there's been some breakdowns and some gobble-de-goop going around that I think has steered some people away.
I had hopes that one day that we could see the old service company, Gene, the 124th, 31st Cav, was down in Blanding with you.
The B Company at Jacksonville, Alabama that was in Blanding has been having reunions for 10 years I believe.
12, I forget, they go way back, the long and the rest of us.
And some of the boys down in Florida that gets together, the old 124th Regiment, 116th Artillery has a meeting twice a year in Florida.
I have been real enthused over the participation coming out of Florida.
As your, I just got recently picked up the address of your post, basic, post commander, General McMillan.
He retired as general. He was post commander when you were there in 1940 and 41 until you were caught on duty.
I was in Oregon when I got caught with the Oregon National Guards.
And you ain't never heard so much crying all your life the day that that order come down.
You are now on active duty and deafening. You're not going home.
And I was for one year a serviceman. I had 10 months in, I had two months to go, and I was looking forward to coming back to Alabama and seeing my wife and kids.
I got food. I got back home five years later.
Just like you, after spending a little time in Europe, they shipped me from the West Coast, from Oregon to Kentucky, from Kentucky to Fort Brooke, Alabama to Camp Shanks, and off to Europe.
And a prayer was answered. Don't send me to the South Pacific. I had a brother there and one in Europe, and I followed him to Europe.
And I had a great stay. I had a great life with the active duty in World War II.
Two weeks ago we have 160 restoration registered for the banquet that night.
We have 40-something that will be here for the Social Lounge Friday night.
And these are mostly people coming from New Jersey, New York, Pennsylvania, Illinois, Indiana, Texas, and California, have found a fun relationship.
I want to present to you a little plaque, a mentor for you to have in your study at home as a man that have kept 31st alive,
which was one of the greatest divisions I served with. And I was with the 9th, the 6th, the 6th, and the 31st. But I take the 31st above all of them.
So Joe, it's indeed a pleasure. I hope you will enjoy this. And it's been a pleasure to know and correspond with you over these years.
Thank you very, very much.
Thank you, Joe.
Zappo got around. Now during his lifetime, the first few years that he was growing up, he was an ugly little cuss.
And for three years consecutive, he won the ugliest baby's contest in the community.
Nobody wanted to feed Zappo. So they made it up among the family members.
They would take Zappo, he was so ugly, they would sit him up over in one corner of the house and get in the opposite corner and feed him with a slingshot.
Paul Herring, how about coming up here now? We want to talk a little bit about this Florida reunion with the old 124.
Give us a little rundown on that.