from President’s Corner, Elsie Item, September, 2017
Ahoy LCIers! I have exciting news. By the time you receive this Elsie Item, we will probably have our new website – usslci.org online for your viewing pleasure. It is a product of Mark Galik who took time out from his busy work schedule to perform this work for us pro bono. With guidance from his father – Stan Galik, one of our Association’s Directors, Mark has produced a very professional, attractive, slick and functional website. Stan & Mark were tasked with designing and producing a website that has a search function. This enables anyone to search all archived Elsie Items for a specific LCI hull number or a name of an LCIer with instant results. I was so impressed with their prototype website that I tasked our intrepid design team to expand the search capabilities for any document or photo that we upload onto the site. This has been done. Our website, in effect, will be an online resource center to preserve the legacy of the LCIs and their crews. We are only limited by the time it takes to upload materials. We have unlimited ban space on our website. We have thousands of photos and documents to upload that our research teams mined from the National Archive years ago. Our Pacific Theater Historian – Dennis Blocker organized this material into individual folders by LCI hull number. They are ready to upload. We have unpublished manuscripts from LCIers that were too big to publish in Elsie Items. They too can be uploaded onto our site. LCIers, family & friends can submit photos and documents to add to our collection. For now, enjoy your ability to search all Elsie Items since the formation of our Association. Much more is coming!
John France
President
US Landing Craft Infantry National Association