When members of the Army Navy Club gathered to relax and swap stories, they marked the organization’s 75th anniversary.

The celebration drew 40 members and visitors to the club’s Quonset huts on a secluded portion of Army Navy Drive. Before their monthly dinner, members of the club stood outside the huts erected in 1948 to tell stories and rib each other about which branch of the military was better or whose service was more strenuous.

The club has maintained its ranks for three quarters of a century, thanks to the Corps of Engineers and 412th Theater Engineer Command of the U.S. Army Reserve, said club treasurer John Turner, a member since 1980.

“A lot of the guys came here with the Corps and retired and stayed,” Turner said.

Members of the club joke that the organization has no redeeming social value other than being able to spend time and eat steak with other veterans and people who are passionate about America.

“It’s just good social camaraderie and a good steak,” Turner said.

The community function of the club is to maintain the American flag atop the old U.S. 80 bridge across the Mississippi River, said club president Greg Raimondo.

“It’s a proud symbol of the United States and the city of Vicksburg,” Raimondo said.

The club also now allows members who have no military background, Raimondo said.

The Army Navy Club of Vicksburg was organized as the Army Club in September 1937 with 42 charter members, Turner said. Some charter members were World War I veterans and others were members of the U.S. Army Reserve and Mississippi National Guard. All were military officers who were working on correspondence courses for promotions or to maintain their rank, Turner said.

“I could give you more history than you could write down,” he said.

Shortly after its founding, the name of the club was changed to allow Navy officers to join, and eventually membership was made available to any member of the military, regardless of rank.

In 1976, Bob Engler became the first enlisted man to join the club whose members are all referred to as colonels. Engler was a third-class petty officer in the Navy.

“We’ve had generals who became colonels and all of the sudden, I became a colonel,” he said. “It’s so we’re all at the same rank.”