The 114th
Illinois performs a formal retreat ceremony at the Lincoln Tomb on
Tuesday nights at 7:00 p.m. during the summer months and as I stated, we
will be having our dress rehearsal on Tuesday, May 27 at 7. We also
present colors for events such as yours and were the Honor Guard for the
Governor of Illinois for his announcement and groundbreaking for the new
A. Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum. Our unit is probably the
longest standing, continuously functioning civil war reenactment group
in the country and also the first unit to be officially reactivated.
This was done with an Executive Order by the Governor of the State of
Illinois in 1969.
The winner of our
Montagnard Cross Bow
raffle was Alfonso Palafox.
These are the Montagnards, or "mountain people" - the
indigenous Vietnamese tribes people. They were much like our
American Indian's in the way they dressed - women in skirts and men in
breechcloth. This cross bow was taken from Pleiku, Vietnam - 1966,
when an Air force plane dropped Napalm on these tribesmen getting
too close to our camp, and our trip wire set up to detect the enemy at
night. This Cross Bow was dropped by one of the fleeing tribesmen
and was laying, undamaged, on the ground. As we went to view
the damage, I picked it up - late Feb 1966. The little tube hold's
the arrow's - they put poison on them to shoot tiger's, monkey's...
