Of the United States of America FATHER JOHN J. HICKEY POST 731 920 West Chester Pike � Havertown, PA 19083 � Telephone 610-446-7555 "Over 50 Years of Service to God, Country, and Home"
Visit us at http://www.geocities.com/Pentagon/Quarters/5425/ |
|
MEMORIAL DAY On Saturday, May 23rd, a group of 12 Post members went to 2 cemeteries to place flags on the graves of our departed members. The following day, Sunday the 24th, we combined Corporate Sunday with the Memorial Mass. Over 65 Post and Auxiliary members participated in the combined Mass held at Sacred Heart Church. The Mass was an impressive service to honor deceased veterans of our country and a most fitting way to begin the Memorial Day ceremonies. Immediately after the Mass, the congregation assembled at Father Hickey's grave where our Chaplain, Father Boyle, read the CWV Memorial verse, "Our Dead." A wreath was placed at the grave and our Firing Squad fired over the grave, followed by a playing of Taps. On Monday, Memorial Day, Post 731 marched in the Township parade with the American Legion and the Vietnam Veterans. We had a total of 24 members dressed in blazers including 2 flag bearers and 4 riflemen. We had the largest number of marchers in the parade! We also participated in the services at the Township Veterans Memorial. After the parade, we held our services at our Memorial at the Post and the Vietnam Veterans, Delaware County Chapter 67, joined us in this impressive ceremony. For those of you who may not know, the Vietnam Veterans have been holding their meetings at the Post in recent months and several of their ranks have joined as members of CWV Post 731. We had 2 new flag poles erected, one on each side of the existing American flag pole, to fly the CWV and Vietnam Veterans flags. As part of the ceremony, both flags were raised and each organization paid respect to their departed comrades. After the raising of the flags, about 100 CWV and Vietnam Veterans members and their families attended the open house. Respectfully submitted by 1st Vice Commander, Sam Zampino EDITOR'S NOTE The open house celebration marked the end of one of the most successful Memorial Day ceremonies in recent years. I have included some pictures of the events on the following page. I will be updating our web site with even more pictures.  CATHOLIC WAR VETERANS AND CORSAC ASSOCIATION MEETING NOTICEThe June meeting was the last general membership meeting until September 2nd. The Commander and officers of Post 731 wish you a safe and happy Summer! COMMANDER'S REPORT - Fred Steigerwalt I hope everyone is enjoying their Summer - hope those golf scores are improving! Congratulations to everyone who participated in the Memorial Day activities. - it was the best ever! Thank you to everyone who helped out with the dinner, and to the Vietnam Veterans for participating with our Post. The flagpoles look great - thanks to George Brown for all your efforts! 2ND VICE COMMANDER'S REPORT - Vince Gisondi Wow -what a year! We now have 195 members for the 1998-year of the Father John J. Hickey Post 731. We enlisted 28 new members: 20 are first time members and 8 are members from previous years who we are delighted to say have returned! The figure of 28 is the second largest membership in the last 10 years. This influx of new membership is primarily due to the Vietnam Veterans who joined our Post. This group of younger vets will certainly add some vigor to our organization in years to come. This new level of enthusiasm was already evidenced at the Memorial Day celebration as the Vietnam Veterans and CWV march proudly (and in step!) to cheering crowds. We salute both our senior and our new members and look forward to a "super" year in 1999! 3RD VICE COMMANDER'S REPORT - Vince Gallagher We are presently awaiting receipt of the paperwork for the William J. Rachor award from the principal of Sacred Heart School. Hopefully we expect to receive this in the near future. Our next program is the Annual Monetary Award which we hope to announce by the end of the school year, and award in the Fall. I have a special request of our members. My entire CWV file is missing and I am requesting members to check their files to see if anyone accidentally picked it up. WELFARE OFFICER'S REPORT - Tom Loftus Please keep the following members in your prayers as they recuperate from their illnesses, injuries, and losses: Dave Rowan, Chuck Kane, Joe Breslin, Mary Hanna, Adele DiJohn (Charlie DeMeo's sister), John Reisch, and Neil Fiorello. Mass cards were purchased for John Ashbrook, Virginia Fiorello, and Catherine Whalen. I am happy to announce that we made over $1000.00 from the sale of poppies. Thank you to all who helped. LADIES AUXILIARY REPORT - Madam President Kay Farrell ST. AGNES AWARD: Congratulations to Jan Zampino on her being honored as a 1998 recipient of the prestigious St. Agnes award. This will be presented to Jan at the end of Mass on the final day of the National convention at Niagara Falls on August 15th, 1998. Jan, you are truly deserving of this award, and we are all quite proud and happy for you! MEMORIAL DAY WEEKEND: Memorial Day Weekend festivities were beautifully orchestrated by Commander Fred Steigerwalt. The highlights included Fred and myself placing the wreaths at Father Hickey's grave after the Corporate Mass on Sunday. The Mass was well attended by Auxiliary members, as was the breakfast afterwards. Another job well done by Spitz Caterers. Monday's activities began with our guys marching with the members of VVA Chapter 67 to Veterans Park, a flag raising ceremony at our post home to show the colors of Post 731 and Chapter 67 (along with the new POW-MIA flag), finalized by an "Open House" celebration sponsored by both organizations which was attended by families and friends. A special thank you to Eileen & Fred Steigerwalt, Dolores & Joe Baker, Don & Joan East, Debbie & Glen Loy, Ellen & George Brown and all who helped make a combined effort so worthwhile! PUBLICIST: At this time I would like to thank Eileen Steigerwalt who has done a marvelous job in the recent months preparing our news for the Short Sheet. Eileen has agreed to take this position since our loss. Anyone who wishes to have articles published in the Short Sheet should prepare them and give them to her. JUNE DINNER: A hearty thank you to Mildred Lester for all her efforts in making this evening a success. The Last Goodbye, By Kay Farrell: Monday, June 1, 1998- a bittersweet day for Post 731. With sadness in our hearts for the voice we would never hear again, combined with happiness that she was finally free from pain and suffering and joined with her beloved Dave, we said our final goodbye to our cherished Ginny. Loving wife, devoted mother and grandmother, Ginny truly loved her family. However, there was another dimension to Ginny- Post 731 especially the Ladies Auxiliary. She held many offices on the Board including Madam President and did them all well. Ginny was certainly the heart of the Auxiliary. She gave advice (when asked), she counseled, she listened - in short, she was always there and she cared. Ginny was an inspiration to us all. She handled her illness with dignity and a devout faith in God. She was a brave and exceptional woman, a "great lady". Goodbye Ginny- we love you and will miss you. Our thoughts and prayers go with you. 
Nominating Committee: We Want You!Vincent Hanna has been appointed the head of the Nomination Committee for the election of the 1999 Board of Officers. The nominations will be due at the September General membership meeting. If you are willing to donate some time and effort in fulfilling the duties of any of the positions, please contact Vince at 610-446-8672. A Few More Updates From the Editor WE HAVE A WINNER: I was a lucky winner of $50.00 in the State raffle. Thank you to Fred for selling me the winning ticket, and to Joseph J. Palaia for signing the check! OUR WEBSITE: In the last edition of the Short Sheet (the one you received about three months ago!), I mentioned that I would include a few general notes about our web site and the Internet in general. I will start off with some VERY basic definitions, and then try to tie it all together. The Internet: Originally a network of military and professional computers, it expanded into the civilian and commercial sector "sometime" in the 1980s I believe. In general, the Internet infrastructure is telephone lines which connect servers (big computers) all over the world. � Internet Service Provider (ISP): In general, most people access the Internet via an ISP (like Erols, CompuServe, or America Online). The basic services associated with Internet access are the World Wide Web, electronic mail (email), and newsgroups (email bulletin boards). The terms "Internet," "Net," and "Web" are used somewhat interchangeably to describe the same entity: a worldwide connection of servers. � HTML: The programming language used to design web pages is referred to as the Hypertext Markup Language (HTML). HTML is complemented by resources such as JAVA and Dynamic HTML which add features such as animation, video clips, and audio. Our site has a few "neat" JAVA features including a rotating cube with pictures from the Children's Christmas Party. � Browser: A program which allows the user to view HTML/Web pages. Most people use Internet Explorer or Netscape. I have recently begun modifying our site to fit on an 800 x 600-screen resolution. This generally means that a picture which is 800 pixels wide and 600 pixels long would fill up the entire screen. If your screen is set to a lower resolution (most likely 640 x 480), you will have to scroll left to right to see the entire screen. I am trying to find a way to have the pages automatically adjust to any screen resolution, but I'm not sure if this is possible. You can navigate through our site by positioning the cursor (the pointer on the screen controlled by the mouse) and experimenting. If the cursor turns into a hand when passing over text or an image, you can click at that point and "jump" to a new screen. These "jumps" as referred to as "links." Our main page links to recent issues of the Short Sheet, recently sponsored events, and other web sites I thought our members might be interested in. I have also included a Guestbook which viewers can sign when they visit our site. I intend to continue to expand our site with pictures from future events, a section for the Ladies Auxiliary, and any other suggestions which I receive. I know that many of you do not have access to the Internet, but I encourage you to take advantage to visit our site if you have a friend, relative, or access to a library which does have availability to the Internet. I think you'll enjoy the visit. Well, it's almost impossible to adequately address the web and our site on one page, but I hope the summary above helps a little. As time goes on, I am really looking forward to capturing our history and our members through this site. I look forward to hearing from you, and I hope you enjoy "surfing the Web! Unsan North Korea 1950 |
|
On a cold and damp November night The Chinese struck with all their might Bullets to the left, bullets to the right There was noting to do but to stay and fight. Wave after wave the Chinese came With bugles and whistles and calling us names Up in the hills the Eighth Cav held their ground While down in the perimeter fell round after round. The wounded was mounting and the dead lay all around Into the next day and no escape was found. All day and into the night At a village called Unsan...was this their last fight? With ammo and food almost gone A decision was made that would change our lives To cross the river and hope for the best For to stay where we were we would all be laid to rest. With one battle gone, our greatest was yet to come Across the river and up into the hills We made our escape, or so we thought For it wasn't very long and most of us were caught. In one split second my whole life would change For no more was I a free man I am now a prisoner in a foreign land And little did I know what was yet to come. |
Poked with a rifle and told not to rest We were marched to a field and put to the test All lined up over an open ditch I prayed to God, don't let it end like this. The march to the North was about to start Those that survived had a very strong heart. And those that did not were lost in the dark Some with sickness, but many were shot. Crowded like cattle in small mud huts To rest in the day and march all night To keep up with the column was the next test For to fall out by the roadside was certain death. In the camps on the Yalu Many thousands were laid to rest For the ones that survived the next few years The memory of our buddies would always bring tears. Then one day our prayers came true... Loaded on box cars we headed south When we crossed the line we knew we had won No longer prisoners of war in a foreign land But free Americans once again. Thomas V. Francione 99th FA Bn. FO., 1st Cav Div captured November 5, 1950 Member of CWV Post 731 |
Back to the CWV
Post 731 home page