Fellow Boxcar Veterans,

Newsletter is late, as usual; but at least the Winter Issue is out while it's still Winter. After I retire from teaching, in June of 2002, I'll finally be done with grading papers and will have the time to get every issue out on time. In the meantime, my only secretarial aide is a very large fifteen-year-old tomcat, named Trooper. He's enthusiastic, but his typing is illegible, and he can't collate worth a damn. I'm slowing down too, so just be patient, OK?!

This issue contains the latest updated BOXCAR ASSOCIATION ROSTER on the next few pages. We have 228 up-to-date current addresses of Veteran Members of the 178th ASHC and 400th TC. I have also included the names of some of our members who have moved without providing a forwarding address, and the address is not available from the Post Office either. If you are in touch with any of our AWOL guys, please contact the Association Secretary (myself) or President Joe Hawkins, or suggest that he contact us, so we can recover some of the lost names.

Our list of Friends and Associate Members of the Boxcars is now at twenty-five. Take note of the addition of Mr. Rodney Brown, who is leading the move to organize the HILLCLIMBER ASSOCIATION for former members of our sister-unit from Vung Tau, the 147th ASHC. Also take note of Mrs. Donna Mares, who is the widow of Mike Mares. Mike served with the 178th at Chu Lai in 1967-68, and did a second tour with the 147th in 1970-71. Mr. Brown informed me that Mike Mare passed away from cancer five years ago. Rodney Brown was an enlisted aircrewman when he served with the Hillcimbers; he stayed in the Army, went to OCS, and is retired as a Major. A number of our members are also veterans of the 14th, and are about to begin receiving their Newsletter as well as this one. At some point in the near future, it might be a good plan to organize a double-unit Reunion of Boxcars and Hillclimbers together.

Boxcar President Joe Hawkins has established the specific dates and location for this summer's Reunion in Omaha, Nebraska, 10-13 August 2000 at the Omaha Marriott. Arrivals all day on Thursday, 10 August; Reunion Activities Friday and Saturday, 11 and 12 August, with a Banquet planned for Saturday Evening; and farewells and departures on Sunday, 13 August. We have discussed at length the advisability of a centrally located reunion site, after three successive years in the East. Omaha is about as central as we can get in the Continental United States, and it is easy to get to; at the junction of Interstate Highways 80 and 29.

Specific reservation details will be included in the spring issue of the Boxcar Newsletter, which will be in your hands ..... In the Spring.

Keep the Faith,

Dean C. Nelson, Association Secretary