Post member Mark Benson procured a copy of the 1945 edition of the U.S. Army's YANK Magazine, because it featured our Post member Norm Skala in the cover story, "Blacksmith in LoloLand". Here, Mark (on left) presents it to Norm, framed, with their fellow Post member and former Post 342 Commander John Westphall. Mark and John have been instrumental in bringing Norm, who is wheelchair-bound, to Post functions and to his doctor appointments at the VA Clinic. Norm, a cowboy and farrier (blacksmith who shoes horses and draft animals) was commissioned by the U.S. Army to serve in the last cavalry division, the First Cavalry, in Chinese Burma, in the heart of LoloLand, near the Salween River. Norm played a key role there for three years teaching the Chinese how to build a cavalry unit, and mount a defense against the Japanese oiccupation of the Burma Road. You may recall that the famous Salween Campaign, that failed repeatedly to accomplish it's mission due to many factors including the untenable environment, resistent and incompetent Chinese military and treacherous routes through the Himilayas. Over 40,000 Chinese perished.
