And a great time was had by all. I know, it seems odd to say the people who attended a funeral (or, more accurately, a memorial service) enjoyed themselves, but we did. It helped a lot that this was a commemoration of a life well lived, rather than the mourning of a death. We had 28 people, including a few spouses, at dinner on Saturday night, Six more of us showed up on Sunday. The church was filled to overflowing (more than 600). Generals Mundy, Paxton, Gardner, Caulfield and Downs were there. There were many active duty
Marines, including current VMI NROTC Marines, and quite a few who were commissioned by Col. Dabney when he was the VMI Commandant.

     Bill's wife Virginia broke her hip and had a hip replacement surgery two weeks earlier, but she climbed out of her wheelchair and walked down the aisle of the church. What a lady! Then she sat there for several hours at the reception following the service and greeted and chatted with every single attendee. Bill's son, Lewis, a Marine veteran, gave a beautiful, and very emotional, eulogy.

      For the Warriors who were there, it was an unscheduled mini-reunion. There were several Purple Foxes there as well. I have attached pictures of the flowers provided by the Warriors and the Purple Foxes. Our web master, Dave Magee will post pictures on the Warriors of Hill 881S web site in a few days.

     See all of you at the 3/26 reunion in Philadelphia in July and/or the Khe Sanh Vets reunion in Washington, DC in late August.

Semper Fidelis, Tom