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My great grandfather served in the Civil War but it's something I'm not so proud of. He was a member of "Lillard's" 3rd Tennessee Mounted Infantry fighting for the Confederacy. Records in the Tennessee Archives in Nashville also show him as enlisting in the Union's 7th Regiment, Tennessee Mounted Infantry 22 Jan 1865. All the records indicate is his name, enlistment date, birth date, and a note saying for enlisting he was given $50, a horse and "campage". No one knows for sure how he came to enlist in the Union Army unless it was for the money because that Regiment was dissolved in July 1865. As if that wasn't bad enough he was Indicted in 1866 for the murder of Joseph Graves, killing him with an axe while they were arguing about the Civil War. After hiding out in the mountains for a while he fled to Texas to avoid prosecution leaving his wife and children behind. He never returned to Tenn. and no one knows for sure what happened to him.

15 years ago this week I bought my first Reatta, the Red. Flew down to Fort Lauderdale and the guy I bought it from picked me up at the airport with it. It had clear coat peeling but was in very good mechanical condition. Drove it home [long drive back to Wisconsin], had it repainted and then a sun roof added and back in storage until my first spring. Early Christmas present to myself but yet a late one as I didn't drive it until April. Every year I look forward to spring as I get to drive the Red again...

Look under "Body Interior" then "IPC Removal" the radio is right next to the IPC and the radio and temperature control can be removed with a torx driver or sockets. Easiest to remove the two together as there is a connecting bar that holds the two units together. Slide it out about halfway and take a small flat blade screwdriver and slide it under the connector for the Temperature Control unit and slide off the connector. The radio has typical squeeze clamps and is removed. Then unplug the antenna.

Family history is a lot of fun to research...the Shipman/Shagley/Parrish on my father's side (Wales), and the Coletti/Cedrone/Tampesta on my mother's side (Italy).

Happy Anniversary Dave! 🙂 I've had mine 14 years. Will be 15 years next May. Our red cars are almost twins. These photos are from when we met in Nashville. We need to do it again.

My dad was career Navy, entered as a Kansas farm boy in 1936 and retired in MA in 1966 as a Sr. Chief Gunners Mate. During WWII he did 2 tours with the Pacific fleet and 1 tour with the Atlantic/Mediterranean fleet on convoy duty (met my mother in Quincy, MA shipyard waiting for a ship to be completed for Atlantic duty). First Pacific tour included Pearl Harbor attack on the USS Oklahoma and then to Figi/South Pacific. 2nd tour was with Adm Bull Halsey's task force in a heavy cruiser. Two Korea tours were on heavy cruiser and LST transport ship. After Korea he was DI at the San Diego Training Center, then ended his career back with the Atlantic fleet mostly on heavy cruisers and one aircraft carrier. I had one uncle who was a submariner in the Pacific and one uncle who was with 3rd Army in Sicily through Italy and eventually Belgium. I did not serve, tried to get into the Navy in '69 via OCS (had 2 years of college at the time) but was designated 1Y and a very high draft number. Brother inlisted in '69 with the Army Corp of Engineers and did 2 tours Vietnam "in country" as they say, '70-'73. I had a great-great grandfather who served in the Civil War for the North out of a Ohio regiment...the Shipman family migrated from eastern PA in the early 1700's through the OH valley and eventually IA, NE landing in northeast KS where my dad was born.

I didn't serve either. I was a 1A and thinking I was on my way to Vietnam. When some of my friends who were my age got draft notices I got a 1H card. (Not eligible for service at this time.) I never officially knew why and I didn't call to ask. I've been told that it was because I was an only son but I don't know that for a fact. I carried that card for years until it was nearly worn beyond being able to read it, mostly out of guilt for not having to go when a lot of my friends did, then I put it away for safe keeping. I intended to keep that card forever but somehow it must have gotten misplaced when moving from one house to another and now I can't find it. After making my last post I got to wondering what kind of machine gut that was in the photo with Dad. I think I have found one like it online. It appears to be a 50 caliber water cooled Browning machine gun. You can clearly see the hoses going to the water pump that kept the barrel cool. Dad had always told me he was in the 377th Anti-Aircraft Battalion but I believe him telling my cousin he was in the 377th Coast Artillery might be correct according to what is written below. ------------------------------ "At the beginning of World War II the U.S. antiaircraft artillery force was very much the poor stepchild of the Coast Artillery Corps. The units were mostly three-battalion (a gun battalion, an automatic weapons battalion, and a searchlight battalion) regiments and separate battalions. They were equipped with a motley mix of obsolescent 3-inch guns and single-barrel, water-cooled, .50-caliber machine guns. The German Blitzkrieg in Europe forced a widespread re-evaluation of the Army's AAA capability and, beginning in 1940-1941 a vast expansion of the arm (it finally achieved an identity separate from the Coast Artillery in 1943). On September 30, 1942, it was proposed that 811 AAA battalions be organized (with a total strength of 619,000 men)." Two views of the Browning .50-caliber, water-cooled antiaircraft machine gun, differing only in the type of mount used. The men of the 225th were trained to use this weapon in their airfield defense role along with searchlights and radar. ------------------------------

I never served, so it's hard to judge what the experience can do to you. First I was 1S, then 1Y and finally 4F with a draft number of 27. I read as many accounts and books about the New Guinea campaign as I could find. The one common thread was how unprepared the U.S. was, the inappropriate uniforms, camouflage, equipment etc... for jungle warfare. Had to be hard for mostly northern boys, to go into battle almost on the equator, to fight the climate as well as their adversary. As I mentioned before, I found my dad was quite eloquent and clear in his description of the terrors they faced. I don't know how that couldn't have an effect.

My family generations each had at least onewar, grandfather-war 1, father-war 2 & korea, me an all expense paid tour of SEA (USAF, didn't want to walk there). Always found it interesting that none of our carriers was at Pearl.

My father and all three of my uncles were in WWII - 3 in the Navy and 1 in the Army. Only my father saw combat, but all survived. Very little information was ever said by them about their experiences. I was born 4 years after the WWII ended so I was too young to appreciate anything that may have been said early on, and then as time marched on, the topic never came up. My father became an alcoholic and died at the relatively young age of 58 - 43 years ago. I regret that we never discussed his experiences, but when I was in my youth and then as a young adult, his alcoholism superseded any such discussions. It wasn't popular then to blame alcoholism on war experiences, but now I wonder. . .

Nobody on my dad's side of the family served in any world war, but my great, great grandfather served in the Civil War and fought in only one battle, the battle of White Oak Road which was one of the last battles of the Civil war. He was one of only 3 soldiers killed for the North on March 31 1865 leaving behind a pregnant wife and a 3 year old son.