November 12, 2015
Victor Del Regno
6718 Fox Hollow Drive
West Palm Beach, FL 33412
Dear Vic,
Thank you for once again coming to Rockland County to show your film, Till Then: a Journey Through World War II Love Letters. The response was overwhelming as the film showed a personal side of war that is rarely examined yet universally understood and appreciated, especially by our veterans.
The story of Camp Shanks and its importance and impact is another story which is interwoven into the film and is of tremendous importance as over 1 million soldiers were processed through the camp during World War II. At the 2015 Greater Hudson Heritage Conference, Dr. Kenneth Jackson, Director of the Herbert H. Lehman Center for the Study of American History and the Jacques Barzun Professor of History and the Social Sciences at Columbia University, in his keynote address identified Camp Shanks as one of the most important yet unappreciated historic sites in New York State. Your film is an important achievement in helping to tell that important story and its impact.
One of major goals of digitizing historic materials in Rockland County libraries has always been to encourage scholarship and the creation of artistic and historic works. I recognized many of the images used in the film from the historic collections at the Nyack Library. Even though I am now here in New City, I am so proud that all the hard work of digitizing and making those images available online could be a small part of your film.
Sincerely,
Brian Clay Jennings
Local History Librarian
