109th Infantry Regiment early 1950s photo album

[mvmhm]

One of the VA Medical Centers Volunteer Service people stopped by yesterday with a half dozen photo albums of photos people have taken over the past decade or so, as well as a binder of old VA newsletters (a wealth of info in those)...the group included a very worn photo album that belonged to a black soldier who served in the 109th in Augsburg. He died in 1988 and is buried in our National cemetery. Apparently after he died his family dropped the album off at the Va (which isn't uncommon...uniforms and medals show up too). The album is pretty rough; mpst pf the pages are seperated and the edges are ragged...some pictures are missing, but there's still some real gems in it.

 

 

Mark sends

[mvmhm]

The first page...there's probably 30 pages total.

[mvmhm]

...a neat shot of him in a bunny hat, and a group photo of some sort....

[mvmhm]

Wowza.

[mvmhm]

He also earned jump wings and was a tank crewman....note how he had his buddies sign his jump certificate.

[mvmhm]

There are two "Old Grey Mare" certificates...this one with his name, and another for 1,000 shares with two females names...there's a whole back story to this...basically, the unit wanted to get a mascot, and a former German Army officer offered to sell them an old grey mare that had previosuly served as an artillery horse in the German Army in WWII. The "old Grey mare" was the song played by the 109th band in WWI. They sold these "shares" to raise the $285...eventually 4,000 people bought "shares" making it one of the largest "companies" in post-war Germany.

 

 

Mark sends