Hello Fellow Boxcars,

It's that time again when we need to start thinking about our upcoming reunion. Hope you all can make it this year. Bob Criswell is working to get us a good hotel and we are looking forward to having a good agenda and plenty of time to take in the local sights. Hope the price of gasoline comes down by the time we get on the road!

I am still trying to locate some more of the Boxcar Commanders in an effort to get more of them to our reunions. If the enlisted crews and pilots can show up then we should have more of the Commanders making an effort. I now have a nephew; Captain Michael Sines who is in "B" Company, 214th Aviation Regiment out of Hawaii in Afghanistan flying Chinooks. I hope to get some pictures or VHS tapes by the time the reunion rolls around. He is flying in the mountains and says he leaves the camera with the flight engineers and crew chief to take the pictures so I know we will get some good coverage of mountain flying. They have gunship coverage when they go out and he says that they have three square meals a day and showers every night. Don't sound too bad to me. I guess he is better off in Afghanistan than Iraq.

Mr. Sanford Parr says hello to all the gang. He was in the Boxcars and some of you may remember him from his hosting the reunion here in Columbus a few years back. He is now the Deputy TRADOC System Manager for Close Combat Missles and practically runs Fort Benning. He said he will be trying to make the reunion but it is the same week that Fort Benning has their annual Infantry Conference with a lot of Infantry displays and a lot of active and retired Infantry Generals running around. Sanford's health is not all that great anymore and he is looking at the possibility of retireing before 2005.

I think it was smart to vote for a reunion every year because our soldiers seem to be fading away fast. It is kind of sad to see all the WWII veterans in their heel chairs and carrying their oxygen tanks around the new WWII memorial in Washington DC. They say we are losing more that 1000 each day. We are all getting older.

For those of you who are going to the reunion please drive carefully and take care. Will see you there.......

Boxcar Six
Ken Sines

Reunion Information