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Memphis, TN - Sue and I are headed to Huntsville this week so that I can participate in the Veterans Day Parade. While I never got the Lee High School Veterans registered as a group, I will proudly march with any of you who show up. My cell phone is 901-634-0054. Call me that morning if you want to meet up.While the parade will take its traditional route beginning at Clinton Avenue, traveling around the Von Braun Center and Big Spring International Park along Monroe Street and Williams Avenue, through downtown Huntsville, and then down Monroe Street to end on Holmes Street, its reviewing stand has taken on a new location.All parade activities, including the opening ceremony, cannon firing by the 19th Alabama Regiment and reviewing stand, will be based at the Veterans Memorial Park on Monroe Street. Parade officials, along with reviewing official Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell of the Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command, and entertainment will all be at the park. The only event officially beginning the parade on Clinton Avenue this year will be a cannon firing by the Grissom High JROTC unit. WAFF-TV, Channel 48, will broadcast from both the beginning of the parade and the park. “We want to shift the focus to Veterans Park for all our Veterans Day activities. That has been the long-range plan,” Drolet said. “It also works well with our plans for the Veterans Memorial. We will have a groundbreaking for the memorial at Veterans Park this year on Dec. 7. We plan on having a ribbon cutting for the memorial next Veterans Day.”Activities at the park will begin at 10:45 a.m., with a flag ceremony at 11 and a cannon firing at 11:11, and entertainment until the parade – with its estimated 200 entries – makes its first appearance. It’s estimated the parade will come around the bend at Monroe and make its appearance at the park at 11:30. To accommodate the larger crowds, the City of Huntsville will set up two sets of bleachers.“Last year, we were three, four, five people deep near the park,” Perry said. “People end up sitting along the curb and in the grass. Hopefully, this will help with that. We anticipate 1,000 to 1,500 people around the park at parade time.”I never heard back from my application for the Lee High Veterans to march as a group in the Veteran's Day Parade so I think it is best to cancel the group idea this year and try again next year. I am still planning to come and march in the parade with other veterans, but we will not be identified as the Lee High School Veteran group. Sorry.
Phil Rairigh, Class of '64 - The mystery photo is a siren for a bicycle. You pulled on the chain and the spindle on top ran against the tire spinning it up like an old"growler" siren that used to be on emergency vehicles. Keep up the good work.
The USS ALABAMA saw 37 months of active duty during World War II, earning nine Battle Stars. The “Mighty A” as she came to be known, safely carried her crew throughout the Atlantic and Pacific Ocean campaigns, and never suffered any casualties or significant damage due to enemy fire. After the war, she was mothballed on Puget Sound at Bremerton, Wash., in 1947.With the war over, and the military’s transition to a “Peacetime Navy,” the cost of maintaining the wartime fleet became too much of a burden. In May 1962, the Navy announced that the USS ALABAMA and many other war ships would soon be scrapped.In 1964, a campaign was launched to bring the “Mighty A” home to ALABAMA as a memorial to the state’s sons and daughters who had served in the armed forces. Alabama school children raised almost $100,000 in mostly nickels, dimes, and quarters to help bring her home to her final resting place.I was one of those school children - a senior at Lee, and I made a note of my contribution in the journal I kept. Many of you also did likewise, and together we all helped bring the "Mighty A" home to honor our veterans. I especially like that one of the B-52 aircraft that I flew while on active duty is also on display there.
Last year I went back and collected as many of the stories submitted by Lee High School veterans and put them all into one special edition of The Traveller. It would be hard to beat that, so I decided to allow those that wanted to see that issue to just click on the picture above and it will link you to that page.
Once again, this Veteran's Day we should all honor Capt. Dennis Faber, Lee High School Class of '65. Dennis is the only member of the classes of '64-'65-'66 we know of that was killed while on active duty in the military serving his country. Lee's Traveller
