From my European buddy, Gerome. This is a news clip from the American Forces Network Europe

WWII vet recalls battles "for" and "with" USA

http://www.afneurope.net/Home/ArticleDispl...t.aspx?aid=8869

Congratulations to my buddy, Benjamin Joy, on his recent promotion. Atta boy!

He is now

SFC Benjamin Joy

1313th Engineer Co. 779th Engineer Battalion. (130th Engineer Brigade)

Ben is the grandson of my dad's platoon buddy, Ernest Joy. Your grandfather is smiling down and very, very proud of you. As am I!

Way to go soldier!

My good buddy Art Cook, wrote to me a couple of weeks back and said he LOVED reading fellow 36th Engineer John Fallon's, recently published memoirs. He said John was his hero and he wondered if maybe Army Engineer would print John's story.

Bravo I said, that is a great idea, and I too thought John's story was well-written and truly showed the COMBAT, in combat engineers. So...a few days ago I wrote to my buddy, Col Mike Morgan and sent him a copy of the PDF file. Would you be interested, I asked? Well within a few hours I received a resounding yes.

And so today I ran the document through an OCR program, and dumped it back into a word processor so I could make some minor changes for John. Also this allows me to send Mike a TEXT file, so Mike can copy and paste into the framework for the article.

It was the first time I used my OCR software (for those unfamiliar with, it stands for Optical Character Recognition). It worked flawlessly and was so easy to use. It even amazed yours truly. Wow, this is amazing I exclaimed over and over!

I also sent a number of photos to use within, at Mike's discretion.

So the three of us are excited and will see the article sometime in early fall, if all goes well.

Thank you Art for your suggestion and inspiration. Thank you John for taking the time to write your memoirs, and thanks to Mike Morgan for giving us the the opportunity to once again grace your pages.

Hugs to all,

M

from Spring 2009 issue - Seabee Magazine

-Seabees Behind the Scenes in Normandy

-Seabees Crossing the Rhine

-A History Making "Seabee"

Many thanks to John for pointing me in the right direction. I was able to copy the PDF and then extract the above articles.

WWII_History___Seabee_Magazine_Spring_2009.pdf

Attached Files

  WWII_History___Seabee_Magazine_Spring_2009.pdf (Size: 522.94 KB / Downloads: 0)

Got to have a musical in here too. One of my favorites, which brings up so many good memories from childhood, is South Pacific. My dad bought the soundtrack for me, and I can tell you I wore it out.

One of my favorite tunes was Dites-Moi. This is the one the children teach to the beautiful American nurse.

I just ordered it on DVD. Needed to add that to my collection once again.

Anyway I wanted to look up the words to the song and they are as follows:

Dites-moi

Pourquoi

La vie est belle,

Dies-moi

Pourquoi

La vie est gai,

Dites-moi

Pourquoi,

Chere Mad'moiselle,

Est-ce que

Parce que

Vous m'aimez?

Dites-moi

Pourquoi,

Chere Mad'moiselle,

Est-ce que

Parce que

Vous m'aimez?

I looked it over and was trying to remember the English translation and this is what I came up with. I wrote to Cher Vee, and asked if I was close:

Tell me why life is beautiful. Tell me why life is cheerful. Tell me why dear madam. It's because you love me?

Vee wrote back and said:

Yes Marion , you think well....

The translation is good !!

It' is a very beautiful text !!

You guys want to know what they had posted on a few sites? Not even close. How did they get this translation??? Where in the French lyrics are are the words SKY, MUSIC or CLOUDS? DUMB!

Tell me why

The sky is filled with music,

Tell me why

We fly on clouds above

Can it be

That we

Can fly to music

Just because,

Just because

We're in love?