On Monday, May 25, the World War 2 Guys took part in the second annual Memorial Day ceremony hosted by Bill Williams and Patriotic Productions. Once again, the members of our group proudly portrayed a group of local heroes from Omaha and the surrounding heartland who died in the service of our nation. Portrayals from our group included Donnie as Private William Orr who was killed in the Philippine Insurrection in 1899, Rhys as Corporal Russell Hughes who was killed in France in 1918, Cody as Private First Class Anthony Mancuso who was killed in Italy in 1945, Matt as Captain Gordon Shotwell who was killed in Germany in 1945, Don as Private First Class Norman Rosenblatt who was killed in Korea in 1950, Eric as Lieutenant William Roark who was shot down over North Vietnam in 1965, and a representative as Sergeant Lonnie "Calvin" Allen, Jr. who was killed in Iraq in 2006. We marched in to the presentation portion of the program in a new features called "The Walk" which was visually pretty impressive. And of course we all loaded up on pancakes and coffee which is a big draw for this event. We can't thank Bill enough for his inclusion of our group in such an important ceremony to remember all of our fallen on this very special day.

On Saturday, February 1, the World War 2 Guys visited the Durham Museum for a group meeting and a chance to dress up in some "classy" Class A uniforms. In attendance were Joe representing the 87th Infantry of the 10th Mountain Division, Cody representing the 349th Infantry "Kraut Killers" of the 88th Division, Matt representing our own 507th PIR while stationed in Nebraska, Rhys representing the 101st Airborne Division, and Eric representing the 164th Infantry of the American Division that served on Guadalcanal. We had a fun unit meeting on one of the train cars nicknamed "The Cornhusker Club" and had a great conversation with one of the museum volunteers and historians named Raleigh. Unfortunately, our visit was a short one, but we will hopefully add this as a regular unit event in the years to come.

On Saturday, July 3 the boys were back in action at the 39th Annual Field Club Independence Day Parade. It was an amazing feeling to be back out among a spirited crowd at one of Omaha's best neighborhood parades. This year we had Joe representing a LRRP from the 173rd Airborne Brigade, Conner representing an infantryman from the 34th "Red Bull" Division, Jeff representing a US Army infantryman in HBTs, Matt representing a paratrooper of the 101st Airborne Division, and Eric representing a Captain from the 2nd Ranger Battalion. We had a great time seeing each other again and we're already scheming up something special for 2022 and the parade's 40th Anniversary.

On Saturday, October 10, the World War 2 Guys were back in the field representing the "Blue Devils" of the 88th Infantry Division in Italy. Our understrength squad for the event was SSgt. Krelle, Sgt. Green, Cpl. Hazard, Pfc. Williams, and Pvt. Mason. We began our day winding our way through cornfields and humping it up the Loess Hills which served as Italy for the day. The men spent time clearing out our old hilltop trench while keeping a keen eye out for any Kraut activity in our sector. We got in a few quick firefights with a small German patrol located in a grove of trees below our position. After Sgt. Green had a weapons malfunction, SSgt. Krelle quickly stepped-in and neutralized the enemy patrol with a little back-up from Pvt. Mason. After the fireworks, the squad spent the sunset hour eating some rations and some cooked Spam provided by Pfc. Williams. Everyone agreed that the hot chow was delicious!  After securing our positions for the night the men looked up in awe of the star-filled night sky above. Thankfully, there was no enemy activity during the night which remained relatively warm for an October evening. The squad was up with the sun, scrounging up some rations and some hot coffee from Sgt. Green.  We packed up and left our hilltop position, pushing to the south to keep the pressure on the Germans.  It was quite an event highlighted by some spectacular weather and some amazing fall colors.