I began my volunteer work with what is now the 29th Division Museum when the Honorary Colonel of the 116th Infantry Regiment (USARS), COL Herbert Turner (a veteran of the 29th and WWII), asked me a question. In 1985 it was a normal day at work, at the National Guard Armory in Staunton, Virginia. COL Turner had been “granted” a space for an office in the then new extension to the armory. Whenever I had cause to walk by his office and circumstances permitted, I would stick my head in and say hello. These encounters grew to be conversations and one day I stuck my head in to see a glass display case with a couple of rifles and other things in it. That naturally started a conversation and he said something to the effect that, “this is the 116th Museum.”
I had already been appointed as the Brigade Historian for the 116th Infantry Brigade (Separate) before the reorganization to 1st Brigade 29th Division (Light) which also occurred in 1985. My duties in that position were mostly the inventory and safeguarding of a number of artifacts that were stored in the armory. It was in doing that work that I discovered that my own cousin (1st cousin 1x removed) Gano Haines “Sonny” Jewell had died in service as a medic in the 2nd Battalion 116th Infantry aid station, at Vire, France, on 4 Aug 1944. In wanting to find a photo of this only child of a couple who had passed and their family photos having been destroyed I discovered an interest in doing the same for every soldier of the 116th.
Since finding my cousin's photo, now 12 years ago, I have spent thousands of hours working to remember soldiers, many of whom have no one else to remember them. I have also worked to support the one museum that remembers all the soldiers of the 29th Infantry Division. I think it is important that we record this history. History forgotten is history repeated.
Barent Parslow
SFC (USA, Ret)
