Welcome All Alaska Nike Vet's
We are at a “crossroads” as to reunions. Previous reunions were the work of 3 to 4 individuals with the exception of the reunions sponsored by FONSS. The before mentioned individuals have said it’s time for others to “take charge” so we are looking for people with the necessary skills to step forward. We will try to keep a dialog open with those interested who contact us at.
Here are
some options I think we should consider.
1: Keeping the
reunions for “Alaska Nike Vets” and holding them in the Lower 48. We need new volunteers to do the planning as
former planners have reached the age that they wish to “step back” and let some
of the younger vets take charge.
2: Periodic reunions
put on by FONSS would surely be held in Anchorage as that is their home
base, and a reunion affords the opportunity to show fellow veterans the
progress of restoring Site Summit. FONSS understands that vets would not be
interested in traveling to Alaska each year, nor is holdiing a annual reunion part of
its mission.
3: Consider opening up
the reunion to include all who served at Nike sites in the USA and overseas.
This would be a huge task to say the least. To get the word out would be a
challenge. Just the list of Alaska Nike Vets includes at present over 350
active email addresses. Notices would have to be posted on all “Nike Related”
places on the web. Also, this could involve the following chore. Ed’s Nike Site has listings of vets for each
unit USA and Overseas with email contact information. As you might expect some
of this contact information is old and outdated and no longer a viable
contact. My guess is that the number of
vets posted there would be well over 3,500.
Side note
on Ed’s Nike Site. Ed Thelen recently passed away. He was in the
process of handing over the site to others; I hope that it is kept alive as it
is a vast storehouse of Nike Information. I just found out that a vet from
SF-88 who was active in the Nike Historical Society has taken over the site and
we wish him good luck.
4: Open up the reunion to all who
served in “Air Defense Units.” That would mix Hawk & Nike vets together whose
backgrounds are totally different. Again,
this would multiply the workload on the reunion planners. Good or bad idea??