Road Trip10 Cities in 14 Days: Days 10-11

 

Days 10-11: NEW ORLEANS

The morning sessions included a business meeting and a presentation on the "Legacy of the 100th Bomb Group and Today's USAF, which its Air Refueling Wing in Middenhall, England. At this reunion, I met a photographer who works there, Karen Abeyaskere, who was one of the people taking photos the night before of us "Next Gen" kids wearing our dad's jackets. 

I am wearing Dad's "Brass Hat," which his pilot Bob Ellis gave to him (and the whole crew) years ago at one of the reunions. Jack  O'Leary, a Next Gen "Kid," sort of organizes those, and I harrassed to make sure women were included in the photo, so he got quite a laugh out of me blabbing away during the shoot, proving I am my mother's daughter as much as my dad's. 


 At lunch, I met up with another Next Gen "kid" Bob and Mary Jo Stropp, a union lawyer and a first grade teacher lifelong Democrats, retired in Florida. 

AND THEN, the very most important, moving presentation of the whole conference for me, on “The Nuremberg War Crimes Trials and ‘Rosie’ Rosenthal.” It led with the history of the camps, outlined by Kirk Saduski again, whose underlying point was that the concentration camps with crematoriums did not happen overnight but were slowly developed alongside POW camps and slave labor camps. He spoke brilliantly on the creation and escalation of the Holocaust. 

To me, this becomes more and more relevant every day in the U.S. where ICE now has now been given a massive budget detains citizens along with legal immigrants. Also on the panel were Ronald Bienstock, the 100th BGF Legal Counsel and Michael Bell, Historian of the  NWWII Museum, who discussed the Nuremburg Trials and  lawyer Rosie Rosenthal, a famous member of the 100th BG, and his wife Philllis Rosenthal, whom he met during the trials. Their son Dan Rosenthall spoke too. 

The last event was the final banquet. I have dozens of my mom and dad at this event throughout the years in other cities, other 100 BG conventions, but I got none of my own. There were several short speeches by young and old and a presentation by Matt Mabe on the making of props for Masters of the Air. Recognition and celebration of living veterans:

L to R, James Rasmussen, John "Lucky" Luckadoo and Murray Lirette in front of the original 100th BG Flag used in the transfer of the fieldThorpe Abbotts, UK to the USAAF July 20, 1943. Jack O'Leary and Joe O'Leary had the honor to hold the flag.

When I arrived back at the hotel, Paul was soon back from seeing Chickie Wah Wah performed and we packed for our last three days on the road.