The first and only time I was in New Orleans was in May 2005. I was attending the Air Force Escape and Evasion Society’s annual reunion. The organization is made up of individuals who successfully or unsuccessfully evaded capture or escaped from captivity and the foreign “helpers” who assisted them during WWII.\r\n\r\nNew Orleans reminded me of Savannah, Georgia and most of the seedier ports I had been to overseas. Our hotel was on Canal Street and there was plenty of poverty. I enjoyed spending time with the veterans and their families. We took a group trip to the D-Day museum and I visited the aquarium. I bought my wife an Our Lady of Perpetual Chocolate votive candle that sits on our mantle—a reminder of the city to this day. One night, while I was out, I ran into three or four Naval Academy midshipmen. They were in town for the funeral of a friend who had gotten drunk and fallen off a balcony. Strangely, at the reunion I ran into the executive officer of the last submarine I had ridden while I was in the Navy. It had been six or seven years but we recognized each other. He was retired and living in New Orleans; his friend, the guest speaker had invited him to the reunion.\r\n\r\nMy personal memories of New Orleans before and after Katrina are of poverty, death, religion, comrades, World War Two, the missing, and the sea.\r\n\r\nFor the sake of full disclosure, I am writing and submitting this entry for a George Mason University history course. I most likely would not have even found this site, much less made an entry otherwise. Because of this, my audience is varied. I actually wrote two or three more pages for this entry. Most of it deals with how Katrina relates to my feelings about other national disasters, especially September 11th and the loss of STS-107 Columbia. During all of these catastrophes I was an investigator for the DOD’s Prisoner of War/Missing Personnel Office. For the time being, I’m not comfortable posting them. Some day I will. \r\n\r\nReflecting on Hurricane Katrina has clarified for myself that my composite memory of the event is the product of the nexus of various events in my life with my past and current position in society. I suppose this is true for all human memory.\r\n\r\n\r\n\r\n