Page 1 of 1

Veterans Day Celebration

Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 5:22 pm
by Cav Trooper
I retired almost 2 years ago from GE Aircraft Engines in Cincinnati, Ohio. For all of the good or bad that a big corporation like GE does, they seem to have embraced the principal of honoring our Veterans, fallen, past, and present serving. For about the last 6 years or so, they have held a Veterans Day celebration for GE employees and retirees who served. Every year the program gets better and they have guest speakers, sometimes veteran employees and other times active or retired military. They have been asking the local Reserve and National Guard units to participate by bringing vehicles for static display and have had at least 4 years with military helicopters landing and staying for static display. Last year was a Blackhawk and a Apache from a couple of units around, some of the pilots were about to be or had just returned from deployment and are great to talk with and very friendly with all of us old vets. This year the event was open to the public and they had a B25 do a fly over and 2 Navy helicopters land and display for about 4 hours, doors open, people allow to sit in them and talk to the crews. 1 was the Navy version of the Apache and the other was the CH53. I was in Hueys in Nam and Chinooks were right down the flight line. I've got the tell you the 53 is a monster. This one is used for mine sweeping and the crew chief went over how they locate then destroy mines pulling a boom and cable system through the water. Anyway, one of the local National Guard Engineers outfits had 6 vehicles on display and I drove my M37 down and the GE security guards (good friends from when I worked there) let me park with the Guard unit. The young NG's were really facinated with the M37 and I had as many people asking about it as were asking about the new equipment. Lots of guys remembered driving or riding the the 3/4. I've been invited down to the NG unit with the truck sometime by the CO and First Sgt. Had a great time with my old Vet. BTW GE has their celebration early since everyone gets Veterans Day off and they don't want to interfer with the holiday.

Regards,

Cav Trooper

Re: Veterans Day Celebration

Posted: Thu Nov 04, 2010 6:03 pm
by rixm37
Great story. SOO GE does bring good things to life :D Its great they honor our vets.

Re: Veterans Day Celebration

Posted: Fri Nov 05, 2010 2:12 am
by N1VSM
No chance that Sabic will go that. Good for GE! GE's only presence here is the ongoing dredging of the Housatonic River to "clean up " PCB's. GE's image is so tarnished around here, I think it would do them well in a PR sense to have the same sort of positive community impact here.