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IN SERVICE
Members of the Newark, Ohio, Double
Nickel Chapter 55 make
up nearly half of the Veterans Alliance of Licking County.
That group of veterans honors fellow former service members
by providing dignified military grave-side services.
The group consists of an honor guard, firing squad, and
bugler, along with presenters who fold and present the
American flag that covers the casket to the next of kin.
The group’s motto is “Honoring Those Who Served.” It
honored 158 veterans in 2005 and 75 in the first six months
of this year.
VVA was well represented at the Bristol, Rhode
Island, July 4 parade, which featured an appearance by
97-year-old retired Navy Lt. John Finn, the nation’s
oldest surviving recipient of the Medal of Honor. On hand
for the festivities were John Weiss, President of the Rhode
Island State Council, Ray Benkosy, the State Council’s
Legislation Officer, and Region 1 Director Al Cummings.
New
City, New York, Chapter 333 held three memorial services
during the Memorial Day weekend, on May 28, 29, and 30.
The chapter presented its Countywide Memorial Day weekend
services at the Loescher Veterans Cemetery and at the Onderdonk
Cemetery. The chapter firing squad took part in a service
at Mount Repose, and presented Watchfire ceremonies honoring
46 Rockland County men who died in Vietnam. At midnight
on May 29, Watchfires were lit at four different locations.
The fires burned for 24 hours in memory of those who perished
in our nation’s wars. It was the chapter’s
19th year of lighting Watchfires.
Beaver County, Pennsylvania,
Chapter 862 recently was awarded a grant by Pennsylvania
State Sen. Gerald LaValle and State Rep. Mike Veon, the
Democratic Whip of the state House of Representatives,
for the chapter’s honor guard.
On hand to accept the check were Chapter President Skip
Haswell, Treasurer William Muns, and Jeff White, Pennsylvania
State Council President.
Lake County, California,
Chapter 95 has had a very busy first year. Chapter
members have helped house four veterans in danger of becoming
homeless, have run concession booths at the Lake County
Fair and at Wild West Days in Upper Lake, have assumed
responsibility for the Avenue of the Flags in a local cemetery,
have welcomed home local veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan,
and have marched in the 2006 Memorial Day Parade in Lakeport.
Plans for the immediate future include a garage sale, a
poker run to establish a scholarship fund, and hosting
the Moving Wall in 2007.
River Rock Chapter 236 in Janesville,
Wisconsin, celebrating its 20th anniversary in
2006, had an extremely busy spring. Among other things,
chapter members led the Beloit St. Patrick’s Day
Parade, gave out ten scholarships to students from nine
area high schools, presented the colors and performed a
POW/MIA ceremony at the 2006 Southern Wisconsin AirFest,
and was instrumental in building a walkway leading to the
Veterans Memorial in Janesville. “Our members
put in endless days and back-breaking work to complete
the walkway by Memorial Day,” said chapter member
Bob Engstrom.
Members of Kentuckiana Chapter 454
in Louisville, Kentucky, recently visited the
Bashford East Nursing Home in Louisville where Dona Schicker
helped run a bingo game for the residents. After bingo,
members Margaret and Gary Holmes, Larry Westerfield,
and Chapter President Bob Keller visited the veterans
living in the home. The chapter runs monthly visits to
the Louisville VA Medical Center for movie and popcorn
nights with patients in the lock-down ward.
The chapter
also had its usual busy Memorial Day Weekend this year.
It hosted the 14th annual Memorial Day services at the
Final LZ Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Highland Memory
Gardens on Sunday, May 28. The chapter Color Guard took
part in Memorial Day Services that same day at Veterans
Park in Jeffersontown, Kentucky. The following day, May
29, the chapter hosted its annual Memorial Day service
at the Kentucky Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Frankfort
and took part in the services at the Zachary Taylor National
Cemetery.
Texarkana, Texas, Chapter 278 hosted a five-hour
Veterans Information
Fair on May 20. The long list of participants and services
included: VA health screening; patient advocacy; Shreveport,
Louisiana, and Texarkana VA Medical Center Clinics; veterans
service officers explaining benefits and programs and helping
to file claims; the Texas Workforce Commission; the Texas
Veterans Land Board; the Shreveport Vet Center; the Social
Security Administration; the American Red Cross; Serenity
Hospice; and the Alzheimer’s Association. The event
was free to veterans, their families, and active-duty,
Reserve, and National Guard personnel.
Members of Sumner
County, Tennessee, Chapter 240 and Nashville Chapter 953 work on a daily basis operating the Veterans Food Drive,
which has helped feed many needy veterans. The Food Drive
is aided immeasurably by Tobey Smith and Associated Wholesale
Grocers.
Members of Ann Arbor, Michigan,
Chapter 310 paid visits to three area high schools,
Belleville, Pioneer, and Chelsea, in May to answer questions
from students about the Vietnam War. Chapter President
Pete Belaire, John Kinzinger, Ken Parks, Dave Nye, Bill
Feight, and Dave Hizer took part in the event at Belleville
High School.
Rochester, New York, Chapter 20 held
a Veterans Health Outreach event July 22 at the Town of
Greece’s
town mall. The chapter distributed VVA membership information
and offered chapter and VA presentations on health-care
issues. Among those taking part were Pat Pudetti, Pete
Galle, and Chapter President Ken Moore. The chapter’s
board in July approved a donation of $5,000 to the Vietnam
Veterans Memorial in Highland Park, N.Y., making the chapter
the major sponsor of the memorial’s upcoming 10th
anniversary commemoration.
Members of Chapter 101, Wisconsin
Rapids, Wisconsin, took part in Memorial Day commemorations
in three cities: Nekoosa, Port Edwards, and Wisconsin Rapids.
In attendance were Roger Kelnhofer, Tom Sachs, Ron Clark,
Bill Falkner, Bob Holtz, Don Schillinger, Tom Stern, and
Gary Schoenborn. Chapter members Dan Henke, Vern Nelson,
Tom Sachs, Bob and Kathy Guyant, Roger Sampson, and Jim
Stack pitched in at the chapter’s first Adopt-a-Highway
cleanup earlier in May.
Tampa Bay, Florida, Chapter 787 provided
speakers for fourteen high schools in the Hillsborough
County School District during this past school year. Chapter
members put in more than 500 hours in the classrooms, teaching
their History of Vietnam War course. At the end of the
school year, the chapter presented its JROTC Medal to the
top Junior Cadets at thirteen of the high schools in the
district.
VETS CONNECT
Members of Porter County, Indiana,
Chapter 905, along with AVVA 905 Representative Marilyn Kaiser,
spent a recent Sunday morning welcoming home C Company
of the 113th Engineers, a local Indiana Army National Guard
unit that had just returned from Iraq. Chapter members
talked to the new veterans about the benefits they are
now entitled to. “Our
chapter was there to help these young men and women realize
they are now a special class called ‘veterans,’” Marilyn
Kaiser said.
In what has become an annual tradition, South
Bay Chapter 53 in Redondo Beach, California, treated
young servicemen and women who marched in the 47th Torrance
Armed Forces Day Parade and Celebration on May 20 to a
barbeque dinner. Chapter members Susan Mattera and Steve
Crecy, along with a ton of volunteers, fed approximately
1,500 troops and their families.
Southern Pride Chapter
485 in Loretto, Tennessee, which received its
VVA charter in April, just completed its first big project,
a benefit to raise money to send items to the soldiers
of the 1/115th Field Artillery Battalion of the Tennessee
Army National Guard, which is serving in Iraq. “This
project was very successful, and we sent our first care
packages immediately,” said
Chapter Treasurer Floyd H. “Bo” Corbin. In
a thank-you note from Iraq, Capt. Theodore D. Webb recognized “all
the Vietnam vets” who “answered a call that
your country put out. As National Guard soldiers, we did
not expect to become Army active-duty combat soldiers.
However, we were asked to serve and we, like you, are serving
proudly.”
For the first time in ten years, the Color
Guard and members of Chicago/Northwest
Suburban Chapter 311 participated in the Memorial
Day Weekend program in downtown Chicago. The chapter’s
Marching Unit joined more than a thousand other marchers
in the annual Chicago Memorial Day Parade on May 27, which
marked the 20th anniversary of the 1986 Chicago Welcome
Home Parade for Vietnam veterans, an event that provided
the spark for the formation of the chapter. That weekend
the chapter took part in ceremonies at the Lake Park Veterans
Memorial, at All Saints Cemetery in Des Plaines, and at
Ridgewood Cemetery in Niles, Illinois. Chapter members
also paid a visit to the Grosse Point Care Facility in
Niles to honor the veterans living there.
POW/MIA
The Eddie Uhlmansiek Chapter 10
in Reading, Ohio,
hosted the delegation of Ukrainian veterans of the Vietnam
War who attended the National Leadership Conference. While
at the Leadership Conference, Chapter President John Erbey
and Veterans Affairs Chair Ed Brown spent time welcoming
the Ukrainian veterans. In Cincinnati, the chapter rolled
out the red carpet. The delegation met with chapter members,
members of the board of the Buckeye Foundation—the
sponsor of the Ukrainian delegation’s visit to the
United States—and with U.S. Rep. Steve Chabot (R-Ohio)
at his district office where they discussed POW/MIA issues.
After a pizza lunch at the chapter home, chapter members
escorted their visitors to the Cincinnati Vietnam Veterans
Memorial and to a reception organized by the Cincinnati-Kharkiv
Sister City Program. Later that evening, Chapter 10 held
a dinner in their honor.
Ron Sidbeck, a member of Santa
Rosa, California, Chapter 223, was among those who welcomed
home the remains of U.S. Air Force 1st Lt. Alvin Earl Crane,
Jr., on May 11. Lt. Crane was shot down over North Korea
in September 1951. His remains, along with those of four
other servicemen, had been turned over by North Korea in
1990. The Joint POW/MIA Accounting Command in Hawaii only
made a positive identification of Lt. Crane last year using
DNA samples from family members. Lt. Crane was interred
at Santa Rosa Memorial Park with full military honors. “The
Air Force did an outstanding job with the burial and the
missing man flyover,” Sidbeck said. “The family
now has a place to go and honor him.”
MEMORIALS
After many years of planning and fund raising,
members of Chapter 154 in Macomb
County, Michigan, proudly
hosted the July 4 dedication ceremonies of the Macomb County
Vietnam Veterans Memorial at Freedom Hill Country Park
in Sterling Heights. The granite memorial honors the 149
local veterans who lost their lives in the Vietnam War. “I’m
glad it’s done and we accomplished our goal,” said
Patrick Daniels, the president of the chapter, which was
honored as VVA’s 2006 Chapter of the Year at the
National Leadership Conference. “We were hoping to
provide a place for the families to go for a moment of
reflection. Hopefully, they will get some closure from
what we’ve done here.” Jack Devine, VVA’s
national Vice President, and U.S. Sen. Debbie Stabenow
(D-Mich.) were among those attending the dedication ceremonies.
Don
Reed of Monroe County, Michigan,
Chapter 142 is looking
for more information about the helicopter that is displayed
at the chapter’s Memorial Park and Museum. It is
a Bell UH1 Huey that served with the 134th Assault Helicopter
Company from November 1967 to December 1969. It saw action
at Hamburger Hill and during Tet ’68. The Huey returned
to Vietnam in October 1970 and was assigned to the 57th
AHC and then the 129th AHC. It returned to the States,
to Fort Eustis, in 1971, and came to the park in 1991.
Please contact
Don Reed if you have any stories about the ship you’d
like to share. E-mail
trkdon@hotmail or call 734-847-1767.
The Greenville, South
Carolina, Foothills Chapter 523 color guard took part in
an April 29 ceremony at the Victor Memorial Veterans Park
that honored American and South Vietnamese veterans with
the raising of the Freedom Flag. A large number of veterans
of the South Vietnamese Army attended the event.
Chapter
483 in Yauco, Puerto Rico, dedicated the Yauco
Viet Nam Memorial on February 20. The memorial honors six
local men who died in the Vietnam War, as well as those
who have perished in all of America’s wars. The memorial
was the dream of Wallace Reyes Pagan, the former Puerto
Rico Council President, who died in 2002. “Wallace
was a man who dedicated all of his time to helping the
veterans’ community of Puerto Rico,” Chapter
483 President Jose R. Valentin said. “Even though
he did not see his dream completed, the monument is there
to remind us of our fallen veterans and of him.”
Harford
County, Maryland, Chapter 588 was the driving force behind
the designation of Maryland Route 24 in Harford County
between the U.S. Route 1 Bypass and U.S. Route 40 as the
Vietnam Veterans Memorial Highway. The chapter has put
up impressive signs at both ends of the highway that include
images of the American and Maryland flags, as well as the
VVA logo.
Among the 51 people who took part in Baltimore
Chapter 451’s annual trip to Washington,
D.C., on June 10 was Gary Reiff, a hospice patient at the
Loch Raven VA Medical Center, who made his first visit
to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial. The group also stopped
at Arlington National Cemetery and took in the changing
of the guard and the Kennedy grave site. On May 26, the
chapter Honor Guard participated in the rededication of
the Baltimore County Vietnam Veterans Memorial where chapter
member John Bartkowiak served as the master of ceremonies
and chaplain Kenny Cullings led the assembled in prayer.
Members
of Greater Hartford, Connecticut,
Chapter 120 provided
150 hours of overnight security for the Traveling Wall
when it was displayed on the Windsor, Conn., Town Green
for four nights in April. Many members put in multiple
four-hour shifts. The chapter also donated $500 in support
of the event. Chapter member Bill Chiodo coordinated the
effort with the Town of Windsor.
Members of Albuquerque,
New Mexico, Chapter 318 and El
Paso, Texas, Chapter 574 took
part in the historic Memorial Day ceremonies on May 29
at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial State Park at Angel Fire,
N.M. Those ceremonies were the first at the memorial since
it became a New Mexico State Park in November 2005. The
striking Angel Fire memorial, which in 1971 became the
nation’s first national
Vietnam Veterans Memorial, has the distinction of being
the only state park in the country dedicated solely as
a memorial to Vietnam veterans.
SCHOLARSHIPS
Northern Virginia Chapter 227 presented a
$1,000 donation to the Arlington County Public Schools
in June. That marked 13 years of support from the chapter
for the Hilt Scholarship, which has helped 376 foreign-born
students assimilate into American culture and citizenship.
The 2005 donation went to 26 students from 13 countries.
The funds are distributed based on teachers’ recommendations
and financial criteria. One past recipient is now an Arlington
County Public School teacher; another is a Reserve Army
officer who has completed tours of duty in Afghanistan
and Iraq. The chapter also presented its 10th Vince Kaspar
Awards for Excellence in the Arts to high school students
for works of art and poetry.
Chapter 325 in Peacedale, Rhode
Island, in June awarded six scholarships, totaling $4,500,
to six local high schools. The chapter has awarded a total
of $35,000 in scholarships since its program began. Work
on the chapter’s 2007
Scholarship Program already has begun.
The six $600 scholarships
awarded by Westchester County, New
York, Chapter 49 this
spring went to Andrea T. Morino of Tuckahoe High School
(The Pete Lambert Scholarship); Sarah K. Walsh of Dobbs
Ferry H.S. (The Peter T. McCauley Scholarship); John Rainone
of Iona Preparatory School (The Hamilton Fish Scholarship);
Thomas Forshey of Archbishop Stepinac H.S. (The William
Sudderth Scholarship); Christopher Kelly of Lakeland H.S.
(The Anthony Shine Scholarship); and Lauren Mozian of John
Jay H.S. (The Jonathan Shine Scholarship).
Rock River Chapter
236 in Janesville, Wisconsin, awarded ten $300 scholarships
this spring to deserving high school seniors and college
students, each of whom has a parent or grandparent who
served in the Vietnam War. The winners: Michelle Parsons
of Milton High School; Kristin Grimes and Steven M. Feeney
of Parker High School; Cameron Redarchek, Tyler Powell,
and Erika Greg of Craig High School; Scott Coburn of Beloit
Memorial High School, Emily Stehura and Daniel J. Feeney
of the University of Wisconsin-Milwaukee; and Philip Johnson
of Blackhawk Technical College.
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