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    From:  Bob Morecook

   Dated:  January 27, 2015

Subject:  The AFVN Email Group -- How it Started

Hi Rick et al
You asked for a few sentences on how the AFVN email group got started --
We began when I got a phone call or email I forget which from the late JO1 Jack Leigh, who was trying to find JO2 Terry Oliver somewhere in Nevada.  Using search engines, I did eventually find Terry -- and the three of us started all wanting to find the late SGM Emmanuel Harper, the last news NCO, a truly great guy, and an inspiration to all of us in "the last newsroom".
Thus Jack gets the credit for being the first "reacher-outer" that led to this group.
From there it case cascaded into a search for the last newsroom, then the last station, which then quickly became an obsession to find all former AFVN'ers.
Part of my own effort was motivated by my own high regard for the good people I was able to serve with in Vietnam, and partly motivated by own respect for NCO's in general [from the viewpoint of a child raised by Army sergeants, spouses and their friends, on Army posts, but mostly at Fort Harrison IN where I lived as an Army brat for 8 years.]
Needless to say, the finding of all the good people was not done by me alone, but by all of us, sometimes in an organized, sometimes in a haphazard method!  I will take credit for discovering the "Yahoo Groups" method of linking us by email, for moderating [or attempting to keep moderate :-) the email group, for creating a first set of AFVN webpages, and for organizing the first three reunions [two at Fort Ben and one at Las Vegas].
Thank goodness for Ken Kalish, Jim White and many others who stepped forward to create new webpages and to organize the most recent reunions. I had reached the point where I no longer had the energy to do it all!
Because my memory is fallible, I stand ready to be corrected on any misstatements or omissions here.
Best wishes,

Bob

The AFVN Email Group -- How it Started

January 2015

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