In May 1935, the 58 men and three officers of Company B, 106th Engineer Combat Battalion, 31st Infantry Division of the Mississippi National Guard shared their first banquet dais as an active unit at the Coral Ballroom of the Hotel Vicksburg.

Last week, five of the unit’s six surviving local members broke bread at the same table for perhaps the last time.

Dick Jacobson, 89, assures it was indeed the final meal the group will share after convening regularly for about 30 years. What will remain, Jacobson assures, is the esprit de corps that sustained the men through war and peace and during health and illness.

“We wanted to shut it down on our own. We didn’t want it to just die on the vine,” Jacobson said.

Jacobson gathered with Charles Gastrell, 86, Ed Pugh, 87, Brooks Boggan, 85, and Grover Sanders, 85, at Toney’s Restaurant to share more old photos and stories. A sixth member, Vincent “Woozie” Bonelli, 93, was unable to attend due to illness and another accounted-for member, James A. “Rip” Harper, lives in California, Jacobson said.

While the men continued their seven decades of friendship as their ranks dwindled in recent years, the idea of the dinner was to quietly put an exclamation point on what a letter signed by the members called “loyalty, determination and allegiance” to the group.

“It’s about the people who did all the good things,” Jacobson said. “We love each other. We are loyal, faithful friends. We are comrades, devoted, sincere and we have stick-to-it-iveness. We are determined and allegiant.”

Company B, composed mostly of young Vicksburg men and teens, was activated May 28, 1934, and called to service in November 1940. After initial training at Fort Blanding, Fla., they shipped off to serve in Europe and the Pacific in all branches of military service, and their ranks grew to five officers and 190 enlisted men.

When stateside celebrations signaled the return of U.S. forces after World War II, soldiers returning to Vicksburg faced a transition.

“They had us in classes because we were soldiers so long, we’d forgotten how to be civilians,” Jacobson said.

Those classes proved fruitful, as many of the men went on to successful careers either in the military or in the private sector. Some worked at the U.S. Army Corps of Engineers Waterways Experiment Station, now the Engineer Research and Development Center, on Halls Ferry Road.

Monthly breakfasts and annual dinners began with the formation of the Company B, 106th Engineer Association – a social club of sorts formed to keep fellow soldiers connected with each other. Venues for those reunions included some of Vicksburg’s more notable eateries, Jacobson said, including the lounge at the Holiday Inn and Maxwell’s.

Today, 12 members can be accounted for, Jacobson said. Through the years, its local and out-of-state members have left iconic reminders of their “first to serve” legacy. One was the dedication of a monument in 1992 at the Old Court House Museum honoring the unit’s service. Another was a bourbon toast initially marking the unit’s get-togethers before the war and later with a dram from a single bottle.

Plans were for the last pair of living soldiers to down the bottle of Wild Turkey. That plan was speeded up in 2004, when Ed Clark, now deceased, suggested they start enjoying it before they ran out of chances.

Each time the old soldiers raised their glasses, cheers of “Company B, by God” would follow. The bottle and the wooden box in which it was kept, plus other memorabilia, will be turned over to the Old Court House Museum for an exhibit, Jacobson said.

Such moments were cherished by the men as a way to ease the passage of time and help out fellow soldiers in whatever they needed.

“I enjoyed the camaraderie,” Gastrell said. “Some of those guys were friends for 70 years.”

But, the difficulty of getting everyone together month after month took its toll.

“With the sicknesses with the men and the sicknesses with the wives, it was getting pretty stressful,” Gastrell said.

Still, some of the survivors don’t see last week’s dinner and “de-activation” of its association as a last stand.

“We figured it was time to end (the meetings) but we’re not ending our friendship,” Sanders said.

Boggan believes remaining members of Company B will just find new ways to keep tabs on other soldiers.

“Or something to that effect,” Boggan said.