For God so loved the world, that he gave his only begotten Son, that whosoever believeth in him should not perish, but have everlasting life.... John 3:16

"Yet a little while, and the world seeth me no more; but ye see me: because I live, ye shall live also.... John 14:19

Jesus Christ plays a central role in our beliefs and in our lives. Our mission is to invite all of God’s children to follow Jesus and experience the joy that is possible because of Him.

Russell Marion Nelson Sr. (born September 9, 1924) is an American religious leader and retired surgeon who is the 17th and current president of the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints (LDS Church). Nelson was a member of the LDS Church's Quorum of the Twelve Apostles for nearly 34 years, and was the quorum president from 2015 to 2018. As church president, Nelson is recognized by the church as a prophet, seer, and revelator.

Dad was a very hard worker always doing something and doing it very well. I can remember watching him build a project with no plans or supply list. When he would start a project, he always had the blueprint in his head. I was always amazed when he finished the job, there were no scraps. It didn’t matter if it was concrete work, brick, carpentry or metal, dad knew how to do
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Mom was an incredible lady, and always dressed to the nines. She was the glue that held the family together. As a child growing up, I remember for
breakfast shealways made biscuits and gravy, bacon, sausage, eggs, pancakes and oatmeal. I guess with four boys she wanted to make sure we all ate and were satisfied. Read more.....>>>>

Us, Boys spent many -  many quarters on this ride and others. When Don went into the Air Force Dad kept us out of school and we spent the whole day there.

When the amusement pier opened in Long Beach in 1902, a roller-coaster and other rides had already been operating at the location. By late 1954, the Long Beach Pike was the leading amusement attraction in the Los Angeles area and the fifth largest in the United States. The Pike drew tens of thousands of summer visitors to its roller coaster, merry-go-round, bathhouse, two pavilions, band shell, and many other smaller attractions. At its peak, it featured 218 concessions.

The year 1955 was a watershed for The Pike. That year, Disneyland opened. The Pike quickly began losing visitors to the instantly popular newly-opened theme park, just 17 miles away in Anaheim. The new "summer-long county fair" amusements introduced at Knott's Berry Farm in Buena Park also drew visitors away. Walt Disney was said to have used The Pike as an example of the seedy amusement zone atmosphere that he meant for Disneyland to replace. Ironically, Disney's Paradise Pier (now Pixar Pier) in the California Adventure Park was an attempt to replicate the seaside arcade atmosphere of the Pike. By 1966, the Pike's famous Cyclone Racer Roller Coaster (larger than New York's Coney Island Cyclone) had closed. What was left of the original Pike finally closed in 1979.

In 2003, after decades of waterfront redevelopment, Long Beach reopened a new (although less exciting) version of The Pike called The Pike at Rainbow Harbor, featuring restaurants, shops, movie theaters, and a Ferris wheel.

In 1968, Americans were asking, "Do you know the way to San Jose?" as Diane Warwicke serenading this great land of ours with her songs. I never made it to San Jose, but Uncle Sam showed me the way to Fort Ord, California.

For the next eight weeks, my time was taking up with learning to be a good maggot, running with a full pack, kissing the dirt, counting in a system Dewey-Decimal never dreamt of: "Up One, Two, Three, Four." Drilling, with training tacked onto it, was the mainstay. Oh yes, I learned a new name, "JODY." It seemed my girl's pledge of eternal love lasted until this guy named Jody showed up. He had my girl at home, and I could only image what they were doing together. Just turned 18, and even thought of going to see the Chaplin...but he came to us instead. To hear his inspirational words of loving support [send the children out of the room], click here (19K), here (120K), and here (69K).

Susan, well she can light up any room or make anyone smile.  Just being around, she shines a light on your day.  She always finds a silver light in all things.

Susan a gift from the unniverse!!
And one thing am most proud of is…..  she calls me “DAD”.

Abbott and Costello were an American comedy duo composed of comedians Bud Abbott and Lou Costello, whose work in radio, film, and television made them the most popular comedy team of the 1940s and 1950s, and the highest-paid entertainers in the world during the Second World War. Their patter routine "Who's on First?" is considered one of the greatest comedy routines of all time, a version of which appears in their 1945 film The Naughty Nineties.
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Abraham Lincoln 

I was born February 12, 1809 in Hardin County, Kentucky. My father removed from Kentucky to what is now Spencer County, Indiana in my eighth year. There, I grew up. My mother, who died in my tenth year, was of a family of the name of Hanks. I went to A-B-C schools by littles.

I think that the aggregate of all my schooling did not amount to one year. What I have in the way of education, I have picked up. At twenty-one, I came to Illinois. At New Salem, I studied what I should do. Thought of learning a blacksmith trade. Thought of trying to study law. I borrowed law books, took them home, and went at it in good earnest. In the autumn of 1836 I obtained a law license, removed to Springfield, and commenced practice. In 1854, the law profession had almost superseded the thought of politics in my mind, when the repeal of the Missouri Compromise aroused me as I have never been before. What I have done since then is pretty well known. A. Lincoln.

"Great Moments With Mr. Lincoln"

Script © The Walt Disney Company

Asa "Al Jolson" Yoelson
 (May 26, 1886 – October 23, 1950)

Al was an acclaimed American singer and actor whose career lasted from 1911 until his death in 1950. He was one of the most popular entertainers of the twentieth century whose influence extended to other popular performers, including Bing Crosby and Eddie Fisher.

Jolson is best known today for his appearance in one of the first "talkies," The Jazz Singer, the first feature film with sound to enjoy wide commercial success, in 1927. Performing the song "Mammy" in blackface, Jolson ad-libbed his signature catchphrase, "You ain't heard nothing yet!" Along with being one of the supreme performers of the vaudeville stage, Jolson was also the first musical artist to sell over 10 million records. Although Jolson's legacy has been somewhat controversial due to his use of stage blackface, his work is being re-appreciated for capturing the roots of minstrelry shows and the classic popular songs of his era.
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The Jazz Singer stars entertainment legend Al Jolson in a story that bore a few similarities to his own life story. Jolson portrays a would-be entertainer whose show-business aspirations conflict with the values of his rabbi father (Warner Oland). Jolson found the challenge of conquering the screen via the new VITAPHONE technology irresistible, so he headed to Hollywood and began work on The Jazz Singer at a fervent pace. Only a few months later, his labors resulted in the creation of an indelible piece of motion picture history.

There was never any intention to have dialogue in the film, but during his first vocal performance, Jolson improvised the words: "Wait a minute, wait a minute, you ain't heard nothin' yet!"

But after Jolson uttered his now famous line, the rest was history. Less than two years later, nearly 8,000 theaters were wired for sound. The Jazz Singer created the momentum for “talking pictures” that couldn’t be stopped and silent films would soon become virtually extinct.

Annette Funicello
(October 22, 1942 – April 8, 2013)

“I have said countless times, 'I owe everything to those ears,' and I mean it.

Annette Funicello is an American singer and actress known for her starring roles on Walt Disney's The Mickey Mouse Club and in the Beach Party film series.

After dancing the lead in Walt Disney's production of Swan Lake at the Starlight Bowl in Burbank, California, in 1955, Funicello was invited by Disney to audition for his new children's show, The Mickey Mouse Club. She landed a part on the show, which premiered in October 1955, when Funicello was just 13 years old, and soon became the series' the most popular "Mouseketeer." Audiences regularly tuned in to watch Funicello and other members of the children's variety show perform song and dance routines in turtle-neck sweaters displaying their names in big block letters, blue skirts/slacks and, most notably, mouse-eared beanies.
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George Herman "Babe" Ruth (February 6, 1895 – August 16, 1948) was an American professional baseball player whose career in Major League Baseball (MLB) spanned 22 seasons, from 1914 through 1935. Nicknamed "the Bambino" and "the Sultan of Swat", he began his MLB career as a star left-handed pitcher for the Boston Red Sox, but achieved his greatest fame as a slugging outfielder for the New York Yankees.

Ruth is regarded as one of the greatest sports heroes in American culture and is considered by many to be the greatest baseball player of all time. In 1936, Ruth was elected into the Baseball Hall of Fame as one of its "first five" inaugural members.
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Leslie Townes "Bob" Hope (May 29, 1903 – July 27, 2003) was a British-born.

American comedian, centenarian, actor, entertainer and producer with a career that spanned nearly 80 years and achievements in vaudeville, network radio, television, and USO Tours. He appeared in more than 70 short and feature films, starring in 54. These included a series of seven Road to... musical comedy fillms with long-time friend Bing Crosby as his partner.

Presenting the Distinguished Service Medal to Hope in 1946, Past National Commander John R. Quinn called the entertainer "the personal jester of every man and woman in uniform ... Wherever they were - in foxhole, Quonset hut, jungle or warship - he administered the toxin of cheer and laughter. ... He has flown one-half million miles to perform in the din of the front lines as well as in the hush of hospitals."
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Charles Hardin Holley (September 7, 1936 – February 3, 1959), known as Buddy Holly, was an American singer and songwriter who was a central and pioneering figure of mid-1950s rock and roll. He was born to a musical family in Lubbock, Texas, during the Great Depression, and learned to play guitar and sing alongside his siblings. Holly's style was influenced by gospel music, country music, and rhythm and blues acts, which he performed in Lubbock with his friends from high school.
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Doris Day (born Doris Mary Anne Kappelhoff; April 3, 1922 – May 13, 2019)

Ms. Day began her career as a big-band vocalist, and she was successful almost from the start: One of her first records, “Sentimental Journey,” released in 1945, sold more than a million copies, and she went on to have numerous other hits.

The bandleader Les Brown, with whom she sang for several years, once said, “As a singer Doris belongs in the company of Bing Crosby and Frank Sinatra.”

But it was the movies that made her a star.
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Elizabeth Victoria Montgomery (April 15, 1933 – May 18, 1995) was an American actress whose career spanned five decades in film, stage, and television. She portrayed the good witch Samantha Stephens on the popular television series Bewitched, which earned her five Primetime Emmy Award nominations and four Golden Globe Award nominations.

Montgomery suffered from colon cancer. She ignored the influenza-like symptoms during the filming of Deadline for Murder: From the Files of Edna Buchanan, which she finished filming in late March 1995. Due to the late diagnosis, the cancer metastasized from her colon to her liver.

With no hope of recovery and unwilling to die in a hospital, Montgomery chose to return to her Beverly Hills home that she shared with Foxworth. She died on the morning of May 18, 1995, at the age of 62, surrounded by Foxworth and her three children from her previous marriage to William Asher.

Elvis Presley (born January 8, 1935, Tupelo, Mississippi, U.S.—died August 16, 1977, Memphis, Tennessee) American popular singer widely known as the “King of Rock and Roll” and one of rock music’s dominant performers from the mid-1950s until his death.

Presley grew up dirt-poor in Tupelo, Mississippi, moved to Memphis as a teenager, and, with his family, was off welfare for only a few weeks when producer Sam Phillips at Sun Records, a local blues label, responded to his audition tape with a phone call.

On August 18 he was buried at Forest Hill Cemetery in Memphis, next to his mother. With no security to look after his remains, only 10 days later there was an attempt to steal his body. His and his mother's remains were reburied at Graceland in the Meditation Garden in October where his grave is to be found today.
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Orvon Grover "Gene" Autry (September 29, 1907 – October 2, 1998) The next year he signed a contract with Republic Pictures and began making westerns. Autry--for better or worse--pretty much ushered in the era of the "singing cowboy" westerns of the 1930s and 1940s (in spite of the presence in his oaters of automobiles, radios and airplanes).

These films often grossed ten times their average $50,000 production costs. During World War II he enlisted in the US Army and was assigned as a flight officer from 1942-46 with the Air Transport Command. After his military service he returned to making movies, this time with Columbia Pictures, and finally with his own company, Flying A Productions, which, during the 1950s, produced his TV series The Gene Autry Show (1950), The Adventures of Champion (1955), and Annie Oakley (1954).
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Henry John Deutschendorf Jr. (December 31, 1943 – October 12, 1997), known professionally as John Denver, was an American singer and songwriter. He was one of the most popular acoustic artists of the 1970s and one of the best-selling artists in that decade. AllMusic has called Denver "among the most beloved entertainers of his era".

Denver recorded and released approximately 300 songs, about 200 of which he wrote himself. He had 33 albums and singles that were certified Gold and Platinum in the U.S by the RIAA, with estimated sales of more than 33 million units. He recorded and performed primarily with an acoustic guitar and sang about his joy in nature, disdain for city life, enthusiasm for music, and relationship trials. Denver's music appeared on a variety of charts, including country music, the Billboard Hot 100, and adult contemporary, earning 12 gold and four platinum albums with his signature songs "Take Me Home, Country Roads", "Poems, Prayers & Promises", "Annie's Song", "Rocky Mountain High", "Calypso", "Thank God I'm a Country Boy", and "Sunshine on My Shoulders".
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John R. Cash (born J. R. Cash; February 26, 1932 – September 12, 2003) was an American country singer-songwriter. Most of Cash's music contains themes of sorrow, moral tribulation, and redemption, especially songs from the later stages of his career. He was known for his deep, calm, bass-baritone voice, the distinctive sound of his Tennessee Three backing band that was characterized by its train-like chugging guitar rhythms, a rebelliousness coupled with an increasingly somber and humble demeanor, and his free prison concerts. Cash wore a trademark all-black stage wardrobe, which earned him the nickname as the "Man in Black".
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I am an old-fashioned honest-to-goodness
flag-waving patriot.” John Wayne

Marion Robert Morrison (May 26, 1907 – June 11, 1979), professionally known as John Wayne and nicknamed The Duke or Duke Wayne, was an American actor who became a popular icon through his starring roles in films which were produced during Hollywood's Golden Age, especially through his starring roles in Western and war movies.

His career flourished from the silent era of the 1920s through the American New Wave, as he appeared in a total of 179 film and television productions. He was among the top box-office draws for three decades, and appeared with many other important Hollywood stars of his era. In 1999, the American Film Institute selected Wayne as one of the greatest male stars of classic American cinema.
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Hank Williams (born September 17, 1923, Georgiana, Alabama, U.S.—died January 1, 1953, Oak Hill, West Virginia) American singer, songwriter, and guitarist who in the 1950s arguably became country music’s first superstar. An immensely talented songwriter and an impassioned vocalist, he also experienced great crossover success in the popular music market. His iconic status was amplified by his death at age 29 and by his reputation for hard living and heart-on-the-sleeve vulnerability.

In 1946 Williams landed a songwriting contract with Acuff-Rose Publications and began composing material for singer Molly O’Day. Later that year he received his first recording contract, with Sterling Records; however, it was on the start-up label MGM that he had his first hit, “Move It on Over” in 1947. Shortly thereafter he became a regular on the newly created Louisiana Hayride radio program based in Shreveport, Louisiana. His breakthrough moment came in 1949 with the release of “ Lovesick Blues,” an old show tune that Williams parlayed into a chart-topping hit, an invitation to join the Grand Ole Opry in Nashville, and international fame.

Hee Haw is an American television variety show featuring country music and humor with the fictional rural "Kornfield Kounty" as the backdrop. It aired from 1969 to 1993, and on TNN from 1996 to 1997.

Hee Haw's appeal, however, was not limited to a rural audience. It was successful in all of the major markets, including network-based Los Angeles and New York City, as well as Boston and Chicago. Other niche programs such as The Lawrence Welk Show and Soul Train, which targeted older and black audiences, respectively, also rose to prominence in syndication during the era. Like Laugh-In, the show minimized production costs by taping all of the recurring sketches for a season in batches, setting up the cornfield set one day, the joke fence on another, etc. At its peak, a season's worth of shows were recorded over the course of two separate, week-long shoots, and then assembled in the editing suite. Only musical performances were taped with a live audience.

Where, oh where, are you tonight?
Why did you leave me here all alone?
I searched the world over and thought I'd found true love,
You met another and PFFT! You was gone!

"Say, kids, what time is it?" Resounding from the peanut gallery—and from millions of television-watching kids around the country—came the reply, "It's Howdy Doody time!"

Howdy Doody is an American children's television program (with circus and Western frontier themes) that was created and produced by Victor F. Campbell and E. Roger Muir. It was broadcast on the NBC television network in the United States from December 27, 1947, until September 24, 1960.

It was thus one of the first television shows with audience participation as a major component.

Howdy Doody is an American children's television program (with circus and Western frontier themes) that was created and produced by Victor F. Campbell and E. Roger Muir. It was broadcast on the NBC television network in the United States from December 27, 1947, until September 24, 1960. It was a pioneer of children's programming and set the pattern for many similar shows. One of the first television series produced at NBC in Rockefeller Center, in Studio 3A, it pioneered color production in 1956 and NBC (then owned by RCA Television) used the show to promote color television sets in the late 1950s.
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Mac Davis, Pop and Country Singing Star, Is Dead at 78

After writing hits for Elvis Presley and others, he became famous in his own right with songs like the No. 1 hit “Baby Don’t Get Hooked on Me.”

The singer and songwriter Mac Davis in 1973. His songwriting revealed a debt to both the sunny humanism of 1967’s Summer of Love and the candid sensuality of the sexual revolution that accompanied it.

Mr. Davis enjoyed early success as a songwriter in the late 1960s, supplying Presley with Top 10 pop hits like “In the Ghetto” and “Don’t Cry Daddy” after spending much of the decade working in sales and publishing for independent record companies.
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Martin Luther King, Jr. (born January 15, 1929, Atlanta, Georgia, U.S.—died April 4, 1968, Memphis, Tennessee) Baptist minister and social activist who led the civil rights movement in the United States from the mid-1950s until his death by assassination in 1968.

His leadership was fundamental to that movement’s success in ending the legal segregation of African Americans in the South and other parts of the United States. King rose to national prominence as head of the Southern Christian Leadership Conference, which promoted nonviolent tactics, such as the massive March on Washington (1963), to achieve civil rights. He was awarded the Nobel Peace Prize in 1964.
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Mary Tyler Moore (December 29, 1936 – January 25, 2017) was an American actress, producer, and social advocate. She is best known for her roles on The Dick Van Dyke Show (1961–1966) and The Mary Tyler Moore Show (1970–1977), which "helped define a new vision of American womanhood" and "appealed to an audience facing the new trials of modern-day existence". Moore won seven Primetime Emmy Awards and three Golden Globe Awards. She was nominated for the Academy Award for Best Actress for her performance in Ordinary People.

Moore was diagnosed with type 1 diabetes in 1969. In 2011, she had surgery to remove a meningioma, a benign brain tumor.  In 2014, friends reported that Moore had heart and kidney problems and was nearly blind from complications related to diabetes.

Moore died at the age of 80 on January 25, 2017, at Greenwich Hospital in Greenwich, Connecticut, from cardiopulmonary arrest complicated by pneumonia after having been placed on a ventilator the week before.

Merle Ronald Haggard (April 6, 1937 – April 6, 2016) was an American country music singer, songwriter, guitarist, and fiddler.

Few artists have matched the impact that Merle Haggard has had on country music as both a singer and writer. Hank Williams, perhaps. Maybe Jimmie Rodgers or Bill Monroe.

In a genre where performers and writers often are separated into distinct camps, Haggard has written the lion's share of his hits, and nearly all of the greatest ones--among them classics like "Swinging Doors," "The Bottle Let Me Down," "Mama Tried" and "Hungry Eyes."

Born April 6, 1937 in Bakersfield, California, Haggard had a childhood filled with the same kind of hardships that his songs would later contain. He lived part of childhood in a converted boxcar. He spent three years in San Quentin for burglary (California governor Ronald Reagan pardoned him in 1972).
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The Mickey Mouse Club

"M-I-C-K-E-Y-M-O-U-S-E." Before the theme song's memorable spelling became an audio icon, before the series even aired, the Mickey Mouse Club was the most anticipated children's programming ever. The Mickey Mouse Club is a classic variety show from the 1950s. The children's program features the famous Mouseketeers, led by Jimmie and Roy, who entertain with song and dance numbers. The show also highlights educational newsreels about children around the world, as well as animated cartoons, often with Mickey Mouse himself. This program is presented as originally created. It may contain outdated cultural depictions.

The main cast members were called Mouseketeers, and they performed in a variety of musical and dance numbers, as well as some informational segments. The most popular of the Mouseketeers constituted the so-called Red Team, which was kept under contract for the entire run of the show (1955–1959). Its members included:
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Minstrel show, an American theatrical form, popular from the early 19th to the early 20th century, that was founded on the comic enactment of racial stereotypes. The tradition reached its zenith between 1850 and 1870. Although the form gradually disappeared from the professional theatres and became purely a vehicle for amateurs, its influence endured—in vaudeville, radio, and television as well as in the motion-picture and world-music industries of the 20th and 21st centuries.

The earliest minstrel shows were staged by white male minstrels (traveling musicians) who, with their faces painted black, caricatured the singing and dancing of slaves.
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Neil Armstrong (born August 5, 1930, Wapakoneta, Ohio, U.S.—died August 25, 2012, Cincinnati, Ohio) was a U.S. astronaut, and the first person to set foot on the Moon.

Neil Armstrong was the eldest of three children born to Viola Louise Engel and Stephen Koenig Armstrong, a state auditor.

Neil’s passion for aviation and flight was kindled when he took his first airplane ride at age 6. He was active in the Boy Scouts of America and earned the rank of Eagle Scout, the highest rank attainable. He became a licensed pilot on his 16th birthday and a naval air cadet in 1947. His studies in aeronautical engineering at Purdue University in West Lafayette, Indiana, were interrupted in 1950 by his service in the Korean War, during which he was shot down once and was awarded three Air Medals. He completed his degree in 1955 and immediately became a civilian research pilot for the National Advisory Committee for Aeronautics (NACA), later the National Aeronautics and Space Administration (NASA). He flew more than 1,100 hours, testing various supersonic fighters as well as the X-15 rocket plane.
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Rick Nelson (born May 8, 1940, -- December 31, 1985, De Kalb, Texas) American singer and actor, one of rock music’s first teen idols. Nelson gained fame on his parents’ television series, The Adventures of Ozzie and Harriet, which embodied middle-American values in the 1950s and early ’60s.

At age 17, in 1957, he recorded a hit version of Fats Domino’s “I’m Walkin’.” Trading on his handsome wholesome television image, Nelson launched a recording career that resulted in a bevy of Top Ten hits and contributed to rock and roll’s mainstream acceptance. Yet, unlike Frankie Avalon and other teen idols who found fame on American Bandstand, Nelson created boisterous rockabilly-flavoured rock and roll as well as gentler ballads.

"The Roy Rogers Show," starring Roy Rogers, King of the Cowboys; Trigger, his golden palomino; and Dale Evans, Queen of the West; with Pat Brady, his comical sidekick; and Roy's wonder dog, Bullet.

Roy Rogers earned the title “King of the Cowboys” for his enormous popularity in films, on television and radio, and in personal appearances. But even before starring in his first film, Rogers earned an eventual place in the Country Music Hall of Fame by founding the Sons of the Pioneers.
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George Reeves (January 5, 1914 – June 16, 1959) was an American actor.
Reeves was born with the name of George Keefer Brewer in Woolstock, Iowa, U.S., son of Don Brewer and Helen Lescher. Reeves started acting in high school and then continued to serve on student productions. In 1943, 17 months after the attack on Pearl Harbor, Reeves enrolled in aviation until the end of World War II, putting his acting career on hold.

After a successful career, Reeves died on June 16, 1959. However, the manner of death is controversial. He was officially found to have committed suicide, but some people think he was murdered or a shooting victim.
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Donald John Trump was born in Queens, New York, on June 14, 1946. His father, Fred Trump was a successful real estate developer. Trump was educated at the New York Military Academy and the Wharton School of Finance and Commerce at the University of Pennsylvania. In 1971, he took over his father’s real estate company, renaming it the Trump Organization. The business soon became involved in variety of projects, including hotels, resorts, residential and commercial building, casinos, and golf courses. His first of many books was The Art of the Deal, published in 1987. In 2004, he launched the reality television show The Apprentice.
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Ronald Reagan, originally an American actor and politician, became the 40th President of the United States serving from 1981 to 1989. His term saw a restoration of prosperity at home, with the goal of achieving “peace through strength” abroad.

At the end of his two terms in office, Ronald Reagan viewed with satisfaction the achievements of his innovative program known as the Reagan Revolution, which aimed to reinvigorate the American people and reduce their reliance upon Government. He felt he had fulfilled his campaign pledge of 1980 to restore “the great, confident roar of American progress and growth and optimism.”

Gary Alan Sinise (Lt. Dan) (born March 17, 1955) is an American actor of stage and screen, as well as a director.

He is a supporter of various veterans' organizations and founded the Lt. Dan Band (named after his character in Forrest Gump), which plays at military bases around the world The Lt. Dan Band is an American cover band originally formed in Chicago in 2003 by Gary Sinise and Kimo Williams to perform at USO shows, entertain troops, and raise money for disabled veterans. The band is named after the character Lieutenant Dan Taylor, whom Sinise portrayed in the film Forrest Gump. Sinise has said in interviews that many people know him by sight as "Lieutenant Dan" rather than by his real name, hence the band's name. The concept came about when Sinise asked for permission to bring musicians on his USO tours. The group was initially known as "Gary Sinise and the Lt. Dan Band".
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Welcome Home to VSPA!  I am writing to you on behalf of the membership of the Vietnam Security Police Association, Inc. (USAF). A thousand plus, and still growing, we extend our sincere appreciation to all who strive to preserve our history and honor our 111 fallen brothers.

VSPA was formed for many reasons: to reunite friends, VSPA was formed for many reasons: to reunite friends, to preserve the memory of our fallen brothers, the history of our service in Vietnam, and to ensure that the hard lessons learned in Vietnam and Thailand would not be forgotten. Lessons of life and death, forged in war, tempered in battle, that when remembered will provide inspiration to Airmen who are yet to taste combat defending the fortress, and pride for those who have fought and bled with us.

Welcome Home to a very special brotherhood. You may have enjoyed web page stories and photos of bases and squadrons we served at during the Vietnam War.