Together again: Fifty years after disbanding, the boys of the National Guard 31st catch up on old times
They started out with only a photograph from the 1950s, one that ID’d all the guys by last names. That’s what most of them called each other by, last names. No addresses, no first names in many cases, no database to help track the men down. That didn’t stop Carl “Buck” Hildreth and Bobby Gale of Columbus from trying to locate former Mississippi Army National Guardsmen of the 31st Division, the “Dixie Division.”