… meanwhile, I take aim with the Beretta at my target.

After the range came the MREs (Meals Ready to Eat) for lunch. Here, Sergeant First Class Carlson helps me heat up my cheese and vegetable omelet. Mine came from a manufacturer in Brooklyn.

MREs are more than just food in a bag. The typical plastic MRE container has a “main course,” in my case an omelet, along with sides (crackers and strawberry jelly, an apple cinnamon pastry – basically a Pop Tart, cinnamon candies) and a smaller package with hand sanitizing wipes, water-resistant matches, gum, instant coffee, and more.

Mmm. Looks good, right? It actually was. MREs are specially engineered to have optimal caloric value for soldiers who are carrying heavy packs in hot areas such as Iraq, not so much for tourists carrying cameras in North Carolina.

While digesting lunch, Special Forces soldiers gave a presentation on individual specialized areas of study that reflect the unique areas that the OSS broke ground in during World War II. These areas of expertise include weapons, medical, and amphibious specialists. John Breen (left) and Sam Spector speak with a communications specialist. During the war, Spector served as a communications specialist with the Mars Task Force.

My father receives an award for being one of the two most accurate shooters on the target range earlier in the day.

After the awards, the Special Forces put together a SPIES and FRIES assault exercise that demonstrates all of the action we’ve seen over the course of the day, with sniper cover fire and squads from air and land converging on a building to sweep it clean of enemy combatants.

If time is short, or a location is too dangerous for a prolonged extraction, Blackhawk helicopters will transport soldiers away from the battlefield before hovering long enough to allow them back into the chopper.

Master Sergeant Michael Mora spends a little down time with the veterans of OSS Detachment 101.

D. Ah Hpung (center) and Dr. Hkyet Aung are two Burmese men who joined the Association for this year’s reunion. For each reunion, 101 invites members of the Burmese population come to America to keep the story of their combined effort in World War II alive. Pete Lutken (left) spent time in Burma and China during the war and is currently involved in the Association’s Project Old Soldier, a crop replacement program in today’s Myanmar that teaches and finances farmers to grow food products instead of poppy to be harvested into opium.

To further the experience of the “average soldier,” Association members are taken to the 3rd Brigade Combat Team Mess Hall for lunch for their final day on base.

My father Patrick, a former chef trained at the Culinary Institute of America, gets a behind-the-scenes tour of the 3rd BCT Mess kitchen.

USASOC Commander, Lieutenant General Robert W. Wagner, and current Detachment 101 Association President John Breen cut a red ribbon to dedicate a yearlong exhibit on Detachment 101 at the Army’s Airborne and Special Operations Museum (ASOM) in Fayetteville, NC. The exhibit was made possible largely through the efforts of OSS 101 and USASOC historian Troy Saquety.

John Breen poses with his wartime dress coat, which is on display with other 101 artifacts at the ASOM special exhibition.

Throughout the course of the reunion, USASOC members took the opportunity to listen to 101 veterans (pictured: Herb Auerbach) about their experiences and the ways they’re similar to what’s expected of today’s Special Forces soldier.

Sam Spector at the Detachment 101 special exhibition.

A wartime pamphlet issued to Allied soldiers instructs them on some of the customs and languages of Northern Burmese tribes. Tribespeople were taught the skills of guerrilla fighting and reconnaissance by Allied forces, such as Detachment 101, to help fight the Japanese who had occupied Burma since early in the war. There are more than 100 different ethnic groups in Myanmar today.

A display case in the Airborne and Special Operations Museum shows elements that were common to the European theater, including the American Army rocket launcher and the German MG34 machine gun.

The museum, which opened in 2000 and covers Special Operations from World War II through today’s War on Terror, was designed around a period C-47 Skytrain transport aircraft that hangs from the building’s ceiling.

The World War II portion of the museum’s interiors is designed to reflect the exhibit’s wartime locations, from a French village in Normandy to the sand and rock-strewn islands of the South Pacific.

The curatorial details in the exhibits, along with sounds of the battlefield piped in through the museum’s sound system, give ASOM visitors a truly unique experience.

Included in the World War II portion of the museum is a display depicting the bitter exchange between the 101st Airborne’s General Anthony McAuliffe and a German emissary at Bastogne, France. When asked if his troops would surrender after being surrounded by the Germans during what was later called the Battle of the Bulge, McAuliffe wrote a one-word reply to be delivered to the German command: NUTS!

The final night’s formal banquet dinner was held at the Pope Air Force Base Officer’s Club. Patrick Ferry (left) poses for a photo with British Lord Sir John Slim and his wife Buffy. Slim served in the China Burma India theater under the command of his father, Field Marshal 1st Viscount William Joseph Slim.

Christine Sajdyk (left) and her sister Penny Hicks propose a toast with Hollywood screenwriter Mikko Alanne at the banquet. Alanne was in attendance to meet 101 veterans and conduct research for the upcoming film adaptation of the book “Four Hours in My Lai”, the story of Christine and Penny’s father General William Peers’ investigation of the My Lai Massacre during the Vietnam War. Bruce Willis will star as Peers, who was also Detachment 101’s commander through the second half of World War II. The film, titled Pinkville, will be directed by Oliver Stone.