On Thursday, 11/1/07 we all met at the Loews Hotel in Annapolis. The Loews was our congregation point for the weekend and most of us stayed there as well. We began the reunion with a welcoming cocktail party. Marc and Margo Wirig greeted us in the afternoon from 1 to 6 and we had a cocktail reception from 6-8PM. We all had a chance to catch up and greet our two new attendees, Larry Hein and Les Viehmann. We had 44 attendees, 26 men and 18 women. Hopefully, we can have more attendees next time! Due to the later date this time we missed some regular attendees, for example, Bob and Fran Cook, who had a pre-planned family cruise, Tim White, who had a special Marine Corps Birthday event and Don Oliphant, who had a pre-planned trip to Vietnam and Thailand.

The next morning we took a tour of the US Naval Academy. We started in the welcome center where one of the docents, who are all retired Navy Captains, gave us a short history of the Academy. We then split into two groups to take the tour of the Academy grounds and buildings. Some highlights were the Officers' houses, the Tecumseh statue painted for the Notre Dame game, Lunch formation, the Navy Chapel and John Paul Jones’s tomb. It was a beautiful sunny day and the docent spent some additional time with our group going through the heritage of the Academy. That evening we went to Phillip’s Crab House to experience a Maryland Crab dinner. Those in our group who are from the area gave us a quick lesson in the technique for disassembling the crab for eating. It was a great forum for merriment and conversation.

On Saturday morning we boarded a hired bus to take us to the new National Museum of the Marine Corps (“NMMC”). The architecture was very impressive. The visual/sound effects were very realistic. Many of the different propeller and jet aircraft were hung from the ceiling. The helicopters were displayed with realistic ground landings. We found our “TBS Remembers” bricks in the walkways to the left of the entrance. Many of us had lunch in the Tun Tavern restaurant there where the wait staff were dressed in colonial garb. Our next stop was the Vietnam Wall. Even though it was not the first visit for many of us it is always a solemn experience. Walter Weathers took an excellent picture of the section with Bill Smoyer which has a silhouette of his sister Nancy. As many of you know, Nancy travels from Fairbanks, AK to Washington, DC every year for the Wall anniversary and has joined our reunion for the past two reunions.

After our return to the Loews hotel we rested up for the dinner at the USNA Officers Club. While many of us were waiting in the cocktail lounge to take the shuttle to the O’Club, we watched Navy beat Notre Dame in triple OT for the first time in 43 years! This was an added bonus to our reunion. Marc Wirig has a membership and arranged for our dinner (as well as all the other events for this reunion). Marc also arranged for a guest speaker, Cdr Ellison, who gave a short presentation on his recent tour in Iraq. Since we were so close to the Marine Corps birthday, we had a birthday cake.

On Sunday, we returned to the O’Club for a nice brunch. Linton Whittles gave the memorial service. Dan Carradice and Marty Fallgren were honored since they had passed since our last reunion.

A special thanks to Marc and Margo Wirig for making all the arrangements for our Annapolis reunion. Everything went very smoothly which is a credit to their hard work and planning.

Please be sure to go through the pictures taken during the reunion.

We are open to suggestions to our next biennial reunion in October 2009. Some suggestions so far are Northern California, which Paul DiBlasio has offered to organize, or San Antonio, Texas, which is centrally located and the location of the Alamo and an excellent River Walk. You can let us know your opinion by commenting on our blog.