THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Wednesday, June 21, 1995 TAG: 9506200337
SECTION: MILITARY NEWS PAGE: A10 EDITION: FINAL
SOURCE: BY CHARLENE CASON, STAFF WRITER
LENGTH: Medium: 86 lines
Chances are, if you served in the Navy or Army during World War II, you saw Hampton Roads in the 1940s.
Ships deployed from local harbors, carrying sailors who would fight from their decks, or soldiers and Marines who went ashore to do battle.
So this area seems a likely location for military reunions.
That's what folks at the Norfolk Convention and Visitors Bureau thought more than 10 years ago, when they wrote their first ``reunion planners manual.''
Business has boomed ever since, bringing more than 10,000 delegates and nearly $10 million in revenue to the city last year.
An estimated two-thirds of the military reunions held in Norfolk are for Navy veterans, according to Amy Jonak, communications manager for the bureau.
``What we typically get is a site committee, which comes about a year ahead, to look over the area,'' she said. ``They're expecting to see the old, gray Navy town of the 1940s. But they see an entirely different city, and it impresses them.''
Jonak said that, while Norfolk Naval Base and the MacArthur Memorial - reminders of the war most reunion delegates served in - are popular attractions, it's the addition of such sights as Waterside and the Spirit of Norfolk tour ship that help draw 25 to 40 groups per year to the city.
The fact that this summer marks the 50th anniversary of the end of World War II doesn't seem to have brought more scheduled get-togethers, she said. Rather, ``there seems to be a shift in the theme of their reunions.
``And we're having more and more groups that cross age boundaries, such as the 82nd Airborne and the 1st Armored Division. Those include people from more than one war.''
Members of the Destroyer Escort Sailors Association, veterans who served in World War II, held their first statewide reunion in Virginia Beach last weekend. The national association has been meeting annually for more than 20 years, said retired chief air controlman, Bob Lamb.
Lamb, who lives in Virginia Beach, coordinated the reunion for the group's 250-member Virginia chapter, which formed last October. Delegates stayed at a Virginia Beach hotel, but they visited Norfolk sights - the Spirit of Norfolk and the naval base complex.
``We get together because we're all getting older and we like to tell sea stories,'' said Lamb, 69. ``But you can only tell sea stories for so long, then you have to get out of the hotel and do something.''
Getting out and doing something usually includes tours of Norfolk sights, trips to Colonial Williamsburg and shopping expeditions to Lynnhaven Mall when groups come to Virginia Beach, said retired Navy Cmdr. Dick Kinsley, military reunion coordinator for the city's Convention and Visitors Bureau.
``They remember the Norfolk of the old days, and they don't have fond memories,'' Kinsley said. ``When they come back, they're really surprised.''
Both Jonak and Kinsley said the most popular month for reunions is September, when the tourists are gone, hotel rates are lower and the weather is pleasant. Most groups schedule a three-day stay, Friday through Sunday, and the average number of delegates is 150.
Military reunions have become such big business that Armed Forces Reunions Inc., which started locally in 1988, books more than 100 each year nationwide, 15 to 20 locally.
Donna Lee, the company's director of services, agreed with Jonak and Kinsley that the main attraction for groups coming to Hampton Roads is the naval base complex.
``We schedule reunions for Norfolk, St Louis, San Diego, Las Vegas, Nashville - because the groups like to rotate around. The inland locations have great sights, too, so when they come to Norfolk, or go to San Diego, it's definitely because of the naval bases,'' Lee said.
She estimates that 40 to 50 percent of the reunions the company schedules are Navy groups, 40 percent are Air Force and the remainder are Army and Marine groups.
Most are World War II veterans in their late sixties and early seventies.
``We have groups who are celebrating everything from the 50th anniversary of the liberation of the POW camp they were in to the 50th anniversary of their ship's commissioning, with the build-up at the end of the war,'' Lee said. ILLUSTRATION: Photo
TAMARA VONINSKI/Staff
Members of the Destroyer Escort Sailors Association gather aboard
the Spirit of Norfolk cruise ship Friday during their first
statewide reunion.
by CNB