Dave, that's a great reason to remember how this all got started.

A lady named Tracy (Black) Enders, whom I did not know at the time, called me in the Fall of 2000 and asked me to speak at the Nathan Hale Middle School Veterans Day ceremony in Coventry CT. She had asked Joe Galloway, he couldn't do it; told her to call Larry Gwin; he didn't want to do it; told her to call me. (That's okay, I don't mind sweeping up for the two of them. Much.) I told her she had the wrong guy, I didn't do things like that, thanks a lot, goodbye.

Ten minutes after I blew her off, my phone rang and Joe Galloway told me to expect a call from the daughter of his old pal Charlie Black, long-dead Cav news correspondent. I told him she had already called and I had blown her off. He told me in no uncertain terms that I WOULD call his pal Charlie Black's little girl back and apologize and ask her where and what color. So I did and the next thing I knew I was standing in the shiny-new Middle School auditorium talking to a mob of lovely kids and vets and you-name-it, including, for the first time, Mark & Marty's sister Gail, whom I had met for the first time in a hail (gale?) of tears out in the lobby of the school that morning.

I also met a great guy named Tom Dzicek, who was ramrodding the very beginning of this "veteran's" project for the school system.

Next thing we knew, Mark had this website going, just about that time.

Well, about 6 months later, the principal sent me a book of poetry that those kids had written about my talk that day. I still cannot get halfway through it without a break.

Then Tom Dzicek started telling me where they were taking the project, and then they actually took it there.

Then they brought in the Moving Wall, etc, etc... published the "612" book... who knows where these wonderful kids take it from where they are now?

Yikes.

I am so damned glad that I was lucky enough to have had a small role in getting it going, I cannot tell you.

Good on 'em all.

Thanks Dave,
Bob