Pasley Welcome Home/Retirement Get Together

[pasley]

Someone suggested we have a get together to celebrate my return. Sounds good to me.

Friday February 1st, 2008 7:00 p.m.
venue No 3 Pizza & Subs
2226 Palo Verde Long Beach, CA
(562) 430 - 0544

We will be in one of their meeting rooms.

I will be there and I will have some of my photos from Iraq, just street scenes, nothing ugly. i will be celebrating my return and it appears my retirement from the Army Reserves marking the end of 36 years of service (Active and Reserves). So if you are so inclined to come and join me, it is just off the 405 freeway near CSULB.

If someone has a proxima projector they would be willing to bring, please let me know.

 

[Empty V]

Someone suggested we have a get together to celebrate my return. Sounds good to me.

Friday February 1st, 2008 7:00 p.m.
venue No 3 Pizza & Subs
2226 Palo Verde Long Beach, CA
(562) 430 - 0544

We will be in one of their meeting rooms.

I will be there and I will have some of my photos from Iraq, just street scenes, nothing ugly. i will be celebrating my return and it appears my retirement from the Army Reserves marking the end of 36 years of service (Active and Reserves). So if you are so inclined to come and join me, it is just off the 405 freeway near CSULB.

If someone has a proxima projector they would be willing to bring, please let me know.

Glad to have you back home and safe Mel!

Billy

 

[Kevfin]

Hey Melvin, this sounds great and well deserved.

I have to check with my unit commander to see if I can get a pass to leave base.

If she says yes, I'll be there...

 

[ddavies]

Welcome back!! I will be out there later in the month of Feburary. Wish it could have been sooner and then I would be able to welcome you back in person. I have/will not forget that you went with me on my very first Ocean dives.

 

[pasley]

Due to a scheduling mix-up at the restaurant the get together has been changed to:

Saturday February 2nd, 2008 7:00 p.m.
Avenue No 3 Pizza & Subs
2226 Palo Verde Long Beach, CA
(562) 430 - 0544

We will be in one of their meeting rooms, food and drink are available for purchase..

I will be there and I will have some of my photos from Iraq, just street scenes, nothing ugly. I will be celebrating my return and it appears my retirement from the Army Reserves marking the end of 36 years of service (Active and Reserves). So if you are so inclined to come and join me, it is just off the 405 freeway near CSULB.

 

[pasley]

Welcome back!! I will be out there later in the month of Feburary. Wish it could have been sooner and then I would be able to welcome you back in person. I have/will not forget that you went with me on my very first Ocean dives.

I enjoy the pleasure of showing a diver their first experence with swell, and seeing their first octopus or eel on a dive.

 

[OCdiving Deb]

See you tonight Pasley!

 

[headhunter]

I look forward to seeing you all there tonight!

Christian

 

[HBDiveGirl]

Many wonderful friends were fortunate to celebrate Mel Pasley's homecoming from active duty in Iraq, and his official "retirement" from the Army after decades of service.

It started out as the billiard room at a Long Beach Pizza parlor, but was quickly transformed into a private screening room, complete with pizza, beer, and sodas. Friends manned the laptop and projector. An important friend offered serious words of thanks and blessings to Mel, as well as a beautiful and personally engraved book of the History of the United States Army. This was serious stuff mixed in with pepperoni and laughter.

Diving friends met military teammates, and conversations roamed from Iraq to Shaw's cove, and from 30 years ago to tomorrow morning. It was pretty cool to all be friends of Mel, and to feel the group connect around him and because of him.


And then... "Lights, please...", and the slide show began.
Mel took us along with him to some of his remarkable memories of Fort Riley, Baghdad, battle rattle, rockets, his Pasley cousins in the Army, shrapnel, feasts, bullets, sweet tea, hooches, 400 lb armored truck doors, friends, air cover, spoons, enemies, good roads and bad, heat (real heat!), and how living under under the path of mortar going somewhere else was tough, but not as tough as when he moved to live in the "somewhere else."

When thanked later on for "taking us along to see some of what he'd seen", Mel turned it around and thanked us for keeping up the dive logs on Scubaboard and DiveMatrix so that he was able to go along with us on our dives while he was away in Iraq.

To say the billiard room in a pizza joint in Long Beach was transformed, for a little while, is an understatement. Thanks to everyone who was able to come. Thanks for the great wishes from those who so wanted to be there but could not. I think it all meant a lot. I know it did to me.

Welcome Home, Mel!

Now, let's go diving... when the rain stops.

~~~~
Claudette