Bill Gillis had a bad day when he decided to ride out October's Hurricane Michael. His house in Panama City sits well above mean high tide, but the after effects of the wind and rain smashing trees into parts of his house made it essentially uninhabitable. Bill and Kathy survived, but had to be evacuated because of worsening conditions. Once in a secure location at a local hospital for minor injuries, Bill had a minor heart attack and had to have a monitoring device removed. But the best part of this story is that he is back at home--a new granddad happily holding little Rosalie in his arms.

This is another happy-ending story. Several years ago, Aaron Thrush was suffering from back pains and nausea. In the process of solving a kidney stone problem, two tumors surrounding Arron's bladder that were tested and found to be aggressive cancer. Local treatment was not successful, and Aaron flew to the MD Anderson Clinic in Houston, where he was treated successfully without surgery with non-chemo Bacillius-Calmette-Guerin and interferon periodically for the next 13 months. No recurrence of the cancer, however follow-up exams will be needed for the foreseeable future. So, Aaron recommends that, if you are having back pains and nausea, see your doctor ASAP. Well done, Aaron.

A few years ago, Gary Guilbranson's urinalysis, prompted by blood in his urine, revealed a tumor in his bladder. It was found to be cancerous, but had not penetrated the bladder wall so, with proper treatment, he was able to keep all his parts. He opted for the Bacillus Calmette-Guerin (BCG) procedure, which is the main intravesical immunotherapy for treating early-stage bladder cancer. Gary tells us that he has now been in treatment for a couple of years, has had periodic look-see's and has been in for at least two other surgical removals. His message "NEVER ignore any sign of blood in urine."

Shown above is an unusually well-populated weekly "STARGARS" gathering at a Starbucks in Springfield, VA. in mid-November. Don Stevens and his daughters, Erin and July (the photographer) joined us in our largest-ever congregation. Going around the table, starting with Tom Burke, are: Jay McDevitt (US Army), Jim Fitzgibbons (USAF), Al Johnson, Your Scribe, Wynn Caub (USMC), Vick Tambone '69, Gary Wade (US Army,) Ralph LaLime, Tony Burshnick, Don Stevens, Jerry de la Cruz and Erin. Don's odyssey, along with other tales can be found on our class website under "Check Points NOTAMS.

Aside from partying with classmates, the highlight of RG and Carol Head's year was a bilingual presentation to the Luftwaffe's "Boelcke" 31st Tactical Wing at Norvenich, near Cologne. Here they presented copies of the German edition of Oswald Boelcke to the Wing Commander and other officials. A busy 2019 is already planned with invitations from the Omaka Aviation Heritage Museum in Blenheim, New Zealand, and the Royal Australian Society of WWI Historians.

Sid Newcomb has been involved his church's new English-as-a-Second-Language (ESL) program and enjoys helping Hispanic adults achieve English fluency and working with the Austin Disaster Relief Network, particularly during the aftermath of Hurricane Harvey. He was also a co-leader of a team sent by Footsteps Mission to teach ESL in Shanghai, China this past summer. Sid became fluent in Spanish when, in his formative years, he followed his father, a PanAm station manager, throughout the Caribbean.

Ed Haerter is enjoying life in his retirement community in Madison, WI. Recently, he was honored to be chosen to participate in Madison's first Honor Flight. Some 5,000 well-wishers saw them off on their whirl-wind trip to D.C. and the traditional memorial sights there—including the changing of the guard at Arlington National Cemetery. Ed stays in touch with Andy Houzenga, who left the Academy early and obtained his pilot wings about a year ahead of us through the Aviation Cadet program.

Andy was at McGuire AFB in the C-135 when, in the early ‘60s, scores of us descended on the 18th Squadron to transition into the MATS jet transport program. Not long thereafter, Andy joined American Airlines and stayed with them until retirement. He and Ed Herter both served in the SAC Reserve C-135 tanker program at O'Hare Field, where Ed was the squadron commander. More recently, Andy ran crossed paths with BG Kaley when on an all-AA retiree cruise to the Western Caribbean. Andy remembers when he and Don Stevens were required to call out "Suey" before being allowed to eat at Mitch's.

Ken Werrell moved to Culpeper from near Radford College a little over a year ago and is trying to adjust to "city" living after 30 years in Christiansburg. Ken is still writing military history, have an article scheduled to come out in a few months (on the Ploesti raid in the Journal of Military History) and finishing up a manuscript on AAF/USAF technical disappointments and failures stemming from leaderships "seduction with the romance of technology."

From our Northwest contingent, Denny O'Keefe reports that his small band of brothers, including, Charlie Diver, Roger Lent and Vic Yoakum are faring well, "aging in place." Vic has recently returned from a Barcelona/Venice trip and is looking forward to another Hawaii sojourn.

The class lost one of our Northwest stalwarts, Neil Delisanti, during this reporting period. Avid sailor, aviator and teacher, he loved working with his hands to build and create. Shown here is a photo of the classmates that attended Neil's graveside ceremony on 16 November 2018, left to right: Greg Boyington, Ron Yates, Jim Glaza, Wayne Kendall, Sally & Dick Sexton, Denny Walsh, Jim Bujalski, Connie Yates, Tony Bilello, Mary & Jim Waddle, Gordy Savage, Jack Brush, Andi Biancur, Pete Roe. Following the service, Ron hosted those who wished to his club at Flying Horse for some remembrances (war stories) and toasts to Nels - and, as it turned out, tributes to a few other lost brethren as well.

There has been a bit of doom and gloom in this rendition, but also stories of survival and lives well led. As our cohort slowly shrinks, we can take pleasure in knowing that there are still some 213 of us out there ready to give a hand or listen to one more Al Johnson ski story--again!

There is more that would not fit into the space avaiable for this article. You may read it in the Checkpoints NOTAMs Section HERE.