Rock of the Marne!
It is hotter than hades here in south Texas, but I wouldn’t have it any other way.
If you are an annual paying member, you should have paid your dues by June 30th. Members that don’t have their dues paid by July 1st, will not receive The “Watch on the Rhine” in August. If your dues are not paid by October 1st, your status will change to “inactive” on the Society roster until they are received. Please send in your dues as soon as possible so our Roster Manager can update your status on the roster. Your membership is GREATLY appreciated.
Donation cards will be mailed out this month. Please donate and support our Society. This has become a critical program to make sure we can keep our Society solvent and our programs running. As we lose members, we also lose revenue. The card lists all of our funds and what they are for. You can simply check which fund(s) to donate to, put it in an envelope with your check and mail it. Please consider donating, it is important to our Society that you support our funds. Thank you!
That being said, please help us recruit new members. If every Society member recruits one person, we will double our membership! So please talk about your membership in the Society to everyone you meet, wear your third ID hat or put a Society sticker on your car. We do have some free annual memberships available for anyone who can’t afford it. Just let me know.
In the last few months, we have had three former Society Presidents pass away. Joe Ball, John Fisher and Joseph Poggi all served in the Society leadership for numerous years. We are who we are today thanks to their dedication and service. Please read their bios in this edition of the magazine.
There are great things happening (again) in our Outpost in Italy. They are preparing for the 80th anniversary of the Mignano Gap battles and are currently coordinating with the Italian Army to establish a monument dedicated exclusively to the Third ID. Many thanks to our Outpost President Luigi Settimi for the herculean efforts he is doing to honor and remember our 3rd ID Soldiers who fought and died in Italy in WWII.
Leonard Collins is the new Vice-President of OP 3. I would like to welcome Peter Grafner as our new Central Region Committeemen and Bill Blissett as our new Western Region Committeemen. They bring a wealth of world-wide experience to the Executive Committee and we are proud and grateful to them for accepting the nomination to serve on our national leadership board. Please read their bios in this edition of the WOTR.
The Marne Hall of Fame committee is also looking for nominations for the 2023 cohort. Please use the form included in this edition of the magazine to nominate any Society member you believe is deserving of their recognition.
If you like what you are reading in our magazine please send our editor, Henry Bodden, a note via email or USPS. He works extremely hard making sure that our magazine has great content in every issue. There are some great articles in this edition so I hope you enjoy them.
I implore all Outposts to please return to meeting on a regular basis. I know it is difficult to get folks together, but regardless of the amount that participate, it is important that you meet and send out letters to your OP members keeping them informed of the “goings on.” After your meeting, make sure you send Henry a write up so he can publish it in the Outposts section of the magazine.
Lastly, Outpost disbursements have gone out to the Secretary-Treasurers of the OP’s. Please make sure you deposit these checks within 90 days or the funds will revert to national. Thank you all for your membership to our Society.
Rock of the Marne!
Toby Knight
Society President