This weekend, a very special group of people will be hosting a reunion on Lake Texoma this weekend. Around 40 Navy veterans who served in Kuwait in 2003 will be at Tanglewood Resort for a Dining Out dinner and more.
Organized by John Seabourn of Oklahoma, Keith Moran, Mark McDougal and others, the event begins Friday and will continue through the weekend.
“We got mobilized in January of 2003 and then we were in Kuwait in February of 2003,” Seabourn recalled the event that lead to meeting the individuals involved in this weekend’s reunion. “Then war started on March 19, 2003. We left around late July.”
Seaborn, who is retired now, was in the US Navy for 32 years.
“There will be 40 at the dinner I have planned Saturday night and about 30 of those are sailors,” he said.
While Saturday’s evening event will be a high point for the reunion, it will not be the only event taking place.
“Friday night we will have a meet and greet and dinner,” he said. “Then Saturday, we will be having a round of golf after breakfast. Then, one of the guys rented a pontoon boat, and some of the guys are going to go boating Saturday afternoon. Saturday night, we will be having what they call a Dining Out. It is a very formal traditional Navy dinner that dates back to Admiral Lord Nelson. These traditions have been passed through time.”
Not only will be individuals at the Dining Out be recognized, but those who are not in attendance will be honored.
“We pay homage to the prisoners of war and all the services and our missing comrades that died in battle,” Seabourn said. “There are a lot of toasts involved. The traditional toasts. It is a very formal dinner, but we are doing it in shorts and flip flops. I probably would not have been able to get 40 of us together if they had to put their uniforms back on.”
Tanglewood was chosen because of its proximity and the amenities available.
“We were originally going to have it at the casino in Durant, Oklahoma. But on this particular weekend, the golf courses were going to be closed so we were scrambling to find a place,” Seabourn said. “Mark’s wife mentioned Tanglewood and she recommended it. That is what we chose.
“Keith Moran lives close and he has been a great help in planning this event. He has been our guy on the ground there.”
For this first time meet up, the sailors chose a warm weekend that allow them to take in many aspects of the Texoma region.
“This is the first reunion event we have had,” he said. “We have had Dining In and Dining Out events over time, but this is the first time that those of us who went to war are getting together. This is the first time we are getting together since a lot of them left in 2004. A lot of people I have not seen in over 20 years.”
Despite the time, the bond is still there.
“I am looking forward to the fellowship with the ones I served with,” Seabourn said. “They are my brothers. The first 11 days of the war, there were like 34 inbound missing alerts. We had to jump and put our gas masks on and our chemical suits and get in the scud bunkers. Those people you huddled in scud bunkers with are lifelong friends even though you have not seen them in 20 years. The thing I am most looking forward to is just reconnecting with my shipmates.”
In order to get the former shipmates together, a web was weaved.
“It has been a group effort,” Seabourn said. “Fortunately, I had a lot of contacts that I had just saved over the years. Then the ones I did not, there were others who did have their contact information. We all just kind of spread out like a spider web to get all of the people we could. Phone, email, Facebook. I think we even used LinkedIn.”
Having multiple ways to try to find people was the key to getting as many people come out.
“We are all just looking forward to getting together,” he said.
