On the first day of the 79th annual,  75th Infantry Reunion, the Hospitality Room was on the schedule as being open. I had arrived before my room was ready, so I decided to sketch the hospitality room as I waited.

Ralph Steiner, the president of the 75th Division Veteran’s Association and someone from the reunion committee were meeting with the woman from the hotel staff who plans such functions.  Chicken or beef options were on the table for the final gala dinner. I had contacted Heidi via Facebook at the last minute and managed to get the reunion rate on a hotel room for the 4 days I was there. Heidi  said that her father, like mine, had never told stories about his service in WWII.  She has been attending the reunions for years and now is the heart that makes the fun happen each year. My curiosity is leading to my wanting to travel the cities in Europe that my father’s 75th Infantry C-Company had liberated of seized up until the final days of the war.

Today I discovered that WWII reenactments a big in France and I am hoping to sketch a few on my travels. Unfortunately the biggest celebrated 80 years since the D-Day  invasion and that happened June 6th. I can’t regret what is passed, I just need to focus on what lay ahead of me.

While doing research on C-Company at one of these round banquet table, the ladies auxiliary came into the room and held a meeting. The minutes from last years meeting were read, then business was forwarded. I was pleased to hear that they plan to make donations to two of the sites we had visited. The Woodring Wall and Museum in Enid Oklahoma. The wall and a small library and room filled with airplane models were on a small air base. The museum was in an abandoned mall and there was  little to no air circulation. Despite this the limited staff was so helpful to the veterans who visited the site. Their mission to preserve military history would get a boost from any donations. I did notice one mom walking through the museum with her daughter at the military museum.

Some of the women of the auxiliary are the same woman who laugh loud and make the reunion such a blast to attend. I learned so much in the few short days I was there and I met some amazing vets including Charles who is 99 years young and was with the 75th Infantry at the Battle of the Bulge.

Looking through one of the history binders on one of the table I found my father listed as a replacement 1st Lieutenant for the 75th. It was like finding a needle in a haystack. Also during the ladies auxiliary meeting I found the names of the work and POW camps that my father’s C-Company had liberated. All last week I was searching to the camp mentioned in several of the C-Company oral histories. The problem is that there were so many Concentration Camps,  Work Camps and POW camps that there were too many possibilities. Attending the reunion, gave me a first hand account from someone who was there. I wanted to shout for joy, but the meeting was in progress and I didn’t want to disrupt the business at hand.

I totally reworked the listing of towns that I plan to visit when back in the hotel room.I added tons more information about other companies movements so I would have a bigger picture of what was happening.  Now I need to compile a simpler list that is just about the towns and how long C-Company was in each. I also need to finish compiling a Google map that shows the location of each town. Though I am planning a very specific path through Europe, I might stray if there are reenactments of 80 year anniversary celebrations in other towns. I saw some amazing photos of the 75th Infantry walking through the woods and down muddy roads. The quality was much better than any other historical photos I had seen at the time. I didn’t recognize the face of the 1st Lieutenant pictured. I soon realized that I was looking at a reenactment of my fathers infantry unit. History had been brought back to life in these crisp color photos.