Dale Schmidt's words; 

"Early in 1990 I came across Don Rice's name in the LST Scuttlebutt so I wrote to him. His return letter, dated Sept. 26, 1990 suggested that we should think about a 887 (Korea) reunion. Coincidentally, Sept. 26, 1990 Dean Rider & I met for the first time, in 38 yrs., at the National LST reunion in St. Louis and discussed getting a reunion together. Dean was instrumental in obtaining the first 30 some names of shipmates by researching his local library sources. Early in '93 I had procrastinated long enough and sent out my first exploratory letter to see if there was any interest in a reunion. I got back a few responses, so I decided on St. Louis and sent out a letter to about 32 people on June 11, 1993. After having to change dates a couple times we finally had the reunion at the Radisson Hotel, Clayton MO., Oct. 15-17. I was happy to see that we had 8 shipmates & 7 spouses in attendance. We decided to have another reunion in '94 and with Nancy & Jack Lemasters' help in locating more shipmates we were able to muster 23 guys and 18 women at Indianapolis, IN. In '95 we had 27 & 21 in San Diego,CA in '96, 25 & 22 in Daytona Beach,FL in '97, 25 & 22 in Aurora, CO. and 31 & 28 in Biloxi, MS this year. (Figures may be low because some didn't sign in) Jack & Nancy's extraordinary effort in locating 887 personnel has made all the difference in the world in having successful reunions. I can't thank them enough." 

Jack Lemasters' words; 

"I wish I had kept record of dates and times in my involvement with our LST 887 group. In January of 1993 my wife showed me an article from the military page of our local newspaper. The article was about the "U.S. LST Association". It was asking for men who had served aboard LST's to join the association. I called and joined. They sent me a list of members who had served aboard my ship, the LST 887. There were 8 names on the list other than mine. I found out later that 6 of these men were aboard at the same time as I . There was only one name that I remembered immediately. John Korda had the difficult task of breaking me in as an EM striker in August of 1951. I had a friend from the 887 that we had kept in occasional touch with over the years. He is Jack Noethlich, an RM striker. Jack and I went aboard ship the same day. I called Jack and fortunately his memory was much better than mine. He was able to fill me in on all the names, and revive my memory. I called a few men from the list. One was Dale Schmidt, who had already talked to some of our shipmates. He and Dean Rider had already began trying to locate men from the time they were aboard. We all agreed it would be great to find some more people and have a reunion. I agreed to help locate people. At first I thought it would be next to impossible to find our shipmates after all these years, but I soon realized it was possible and also a very rewarding activity for my retirement years. Less than 9 months later the first reunion was held in St.Louis, at which time we had been able to locate about 25 shipmates. Initially I searched telephone directories in libraries. Then I bought computer phone disks but for the last couple of years I have been on the Internet using "people search' sites. The biggest boost to my search efforts came when I heard the ship's muster lists were available from the National Archives. These lists have provided the full names of enlisted men who served aboard the 887. Lists after 1957 also included officers names. Any information about home towns or states of shipmates enhances the chance of locating them. At this time we have located 175 men. Sadly our deceased list contains another 39 names."