The GI Film Festival announced that Gary will host a screening of Forrest Gump as part of the festival events this coming Memorial Day weekend in Washington, D.C. Following the screening, Gary will be guest of honor at a VIP Reception to benefit the American Veterans Disabled for Life Memorial.

According to their website, the GIFF is the first film festival to celebrate and honor the heroic stories of the American Armed Forces in film. They will present films from both established and new filmmakers; some will be fan favorites while others will be screened for the first time.

The festival takes place May 26th-28th at the Ronald Regan International Trade Center, Washington, D.C.

Tickets go on sale April 10th. Please visit the GI Film Festival website for additional information.

Gary was a guest on Dennis Miller’s radio show yesterday. They talked a bit about Operation Iraqi Children, CSI NY and the USO. The interview is available on line here.

The 4th Annual Steppenwolf Celebrity Golf Classic was held earlier this month in Indian Wells, California. Our as-ever faithful photographer Glenda was in attendance, and sent along photos of Gary and other celebrity participants.

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There’s a nice column today in the Orange County (California) Register about Gary’s USO work and his unswerving support for serving troops and their families.

We’re still calling this rumor for now, but IGN is reporting that Gary is “close to being cast” in the next Star Trek movie. The part of McCoy is apparently a small one, so the main question seems to be whether filming could be juggled with Gary’s CSI:NY schedule.

Paramount plans to release the movie in December 2008.

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American Forces Press Service is reporting that Gary will be honored with the Military Officers Association of America Distinguished Service Award for 2007. The MOAA is a member of America Supports You, a Defense Department program highlighting the ways Americans and the corporate sector are supporting the nation’s service members. Dupont Corporation will also be honored.

The key elements for an individual to receive the MOAA Distinguished Service Award is selfless service, achievement of results and reflections of credit on the military community.

The awards will be presented in a ceremony on Capitol Hill on April 17.

Read more here.

Gary’s birthday is this Saturday, March 17.  If you haven’t done so already and would like to leave a birthday greeting, please share your happy birthday wishes at our guestbook.

Edited to add:  This post is not the guestbook, so leaving a comment here doesn’t count!  Click here to sign the guestbook.

Military newspaper Stars & Stripes has a few details about the LDB’s summer USO tour.  They’ll be playing five shows in Germany: Spangdahlem (May 8th), Hohenfels (May 9), Ansbach (May 10), Stuttgart (May 11) and Ramstein (May 14).  They also have one performance scheduled for Belgium, on May 12 in Mons.

Coverage of the LDB’s performance in Hawaii, including several pictures, can be found at the Honolulu Advertiser and KGMB-9.

(Thanks to those who’ve left a Guestbook entry thus far — see the prior post — as an experiment, it’s going really well!)

This isn’t really something I ever planned on adding to the site, but we’ve been receiving so many emails lately from people who wanted to express their thanks to Gary for all his work in support of our troops and veterans, I thought we might give it a try.

We’re going to experiment with a guestbook at which visitors can leave publically-viewable messages.  These can either be general ones about the site (hey, we always love hearing that you love visiting), about Gary’s work or talent, or even a message to Gary.  Maybe a birthday greeting! (It’s coming up on March 17.)

We can’t promise he will read each message, but we will make sure he knows the guestbook is there.   I can pretty much guarantee there won’t be personal responses, so it’s not a place for questions or anything that requires any kind of response.

Needless to say, the guestbook will be monitored, and anything inflammatory or inappropriate will be deleted.  It’s not a place to get into political discussions.  Gary’s work for the USO and veterans is a fair topic — the war itself is not.  Let’s also try to keep things in relatively good taste — yes, many of us think he’s very nice to look at, but let’s keep it to things you wouldn’t mind his wife and kids reading, okay?

Anyway, we’ll give this a try — if it seems to be of interest, I’ll add button links later on.  If you have thoughts, feel free to share them in the comments or in the guestbook itself.

• The Fort Leavenworth Lamp has an article about Gary’s recent visit and his work with Operation Iraqi Children.
• The USO reports that Gary will be in Hawaii this weekend with the LDB.
• Our co-obsessives friends over at the livejournal community sinise_daily have scans of the recent interview Gary did for Guideposts magazine.  (If you have a livejournal, this is a terrific community to watch or join!)

Good grief… I go away for a few days and teh Internets (which is made of a series of tubes, you know) get all crazy with rumors about casting for Star Trek XI — which may be a Starfleet Academy story or “first adventure” story — or may not. We do know that it will be directed by JJ Abrams of Lost and Alias, and the studio apparently wants Matt Damon, Adrien Brody, Gary and James McAvoy as Kirk, Spock, McCoy and Scotty, respectively.

IGN broke the story (such as it is) here and has more here, and you can read various rehashes about it here, here, and here.

A couple of notes of caution are in order — as IGN points out, Gary has a relatively small time window to do a film during his CSI:NY hiatus, and he already has other plans for that hiatus, including a USO tour. On the other hand, Star Trek and CSI are corporate siblings, of a sort, so maybe something can be worked out. Anyway, when we hear, we’ll pass it on!