Sometimes all the planets align and some unbelievable things happen. Today the widow of retired Air Force Major Robert Bollinger stopped in to ask if she could donate her husband and father-in-law's military artifacts. She invited me to her house to pick up three boxes of uniforms and accouterments. I'm from southeast Missouri and in my family line are several Bollingers (who originally came from North Carolina after the Revolutionary War along with the my ancestors.) After getting back to the museum, a quick check revealed that the father-in-law, Leroy Bollinger was from the same area in Missouri as me, and after checking family trees, he found that he shares the same Grandfather, Moses Bollinger, who served as a Private in the Missouri militia in the War of 1812! What are the odds?  (Major Bollinger met and married his wife when he was stationed in Japan – they were married nearly 52 years when the Major passed away)!

Shown here is a small portion of the items we received.

 

There's several pairs of 1943 dated boxers and a shirt....

 

Mark sends

There's also three pillow shames that look like they just came out of the box....

His WWII uniform showing he was in the 36th Engineers...unfortunately his Ike has had all the do-dads removed, so I'll probably restore that at some point in time....

Major Bollinger started his Air Force career as an enlisted man working as a munition maintenance tech. He made it to Staff Sergeant and then got his commission, finally retiring in 1996. He's buried at the Dayton National Cemetery, but his marked has his rank as Staff Sergeant, and conflict as "Persian Gulf". Not sure why there's a disconnect with the rank and location.. Anywho, I get several sets of uniforms, dress and fatigue...there's a real nice jungle jacket with Vietnamese-made insignia.  Would have been neat to meet him cousin to cousin before he died.

 

Here's one of his field jackets with extreme cold weather hood...I think the 7th Air Force is Japanese made....

Lots of insignias and two pairs of BCGs......

Some early fatigues....basically as new as the day they were issued....and my favorite of the group, his jungle jacket...

If there's any vintage clothing people, they'll like this...a suit he had made in Japan....it took me over two hours to photograph everything, but these are some of the "neater" items...and so it goes.

 

Mark sends

Oops, I almost forgot - our mutual GGGGGGrand Father, Private Moses Bollinger.