November 15, 2019
Attention all Hotel 2/5 Members and Guests:
The La Quinta Inn was only minutes walking distance from the “Alamo” and the San Antonio Riverwalk Plaza. With the new renovations, the hospitality room in the Crocket West room was beautiful. There we were within walking distance across the street to the mall and most attractions. “Hop on and Hop off” bus passes were provided along with the “Go Rio Riverwalk” boat rides. Transportation to sightseeing was easy and fun. Many in our group commented that San Antonio was a great place and they really had a wonderful time exploring the city and its surroundings.
At our Thursday night “Meet and Great”, it was great to see the large crowd of Fifty-three made up of thirty veterans in addition to twenty-four wives, friends, and family in attendance. We had a wonderful opening ceremony listening to the bagpipe playing the Marine Corps Hymn while the local San Antonio Marine Corps Color Guard lead by Sgt. Major Cary presented the colors. Larry reviewed the Campaign streamers attached to the top of the United States Marine Corps flag. Next, he presented the annual reunion streamer which was placed with the other past annual reunion streamers on top of our H 2/5 guidon flag. Larry Tyler presented a Vietnam War PowerPoint presentation called “50 Years Ago in Vietnam”.
The weather was a little cool in the lower 60’s most of the days. We also experienced rain showers from time to time, so the reunion sweatshirts were great to have and wear wherever we went.
Like most of our reunions, we had two great group events take place. The first was a Friday lunch at the Lone Star Café on the Riverwalk. The barbequed food and fancy drinks were delicious. Although our day boat cruise on the Riverwalk was canceled due to the rain, we were able to go on an even longer Riverwalk tour cruise on the Go RIO boat tour during the evening after dark, which was our second group event. The whole city was beautifully lit up with colored lights and the two boat drivers took us to parts of the city that are not normally on the tour route. Everyone had a great time.
We were given lots of tourist information and encouraged to explore such places as The Alamo, the Riverwalk Mall and Plaza, the San Antonio River Walk, Tower of the Americas – Space Needle, San Antonio Missions, Pearl Culinary & Culture, Veterans Memorial Park, Market Square – El Mercado, Convention Center, and the King William Historical District. The downtown dining and nightlife were fantastic.
The hotel provided us with the Presidential suite to host our open bar for our reunion guests. The bathtub was filled with lots of beer and most hard liquors. Yes, even Robert Hardrick’s Tequila from Mexico.
We had a very beautiful semi-formal banquet dinner. Our guest speaker was John Baynes, a Navy Vietnam veteran, and a lifetime resident of San Antonio, spoke about the subject of “Hill 881 South” and his involvement with the San Antonio’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial and the Veterans Memorial Plaza. Our successful annual fundraiser auction was handled very professionally by Jay Peterson.
We especially had a great time sitting around together and talking out our experiences and expressing our thoughts about the Vietnam War.
Semper FI,
Larry Tyler & Robert Hardrick