The Last Word
I have a calendar with every weekend in August marked with a VFW event. If it was anything else, other than fishing with my buddies, I would roll my eyes and complain. However, its pretty darn hard complaining when it’s a BBQ with the Boy Scouts, an evening with my Post members and those from 1040 at a ballgame, or attending the National Convention. And August is just the lead-up to when we really get busy with Voice of Democracy contests, Teacher of the Year, etc., Buddy Poppies, speaking in schools about Veterans Day, etc. An active Post like ours participates in all these events and that requires getting off your duff and making things happen. I can say without any hesitation, we don’t allow any moss to grow on our backsides, although if this rain doesn’t stop sooner or later, it will. We have folks stepping up and volunteering for anything that is coming up and I want to thank each and everyone who does take part in Post activities. As busy as we are, we can do more for our veteran community and we are investigating ways to do so. I ask you to please attend Post meetings and, if you can’t, drop an email to us and let us know where and when you can participate after reviewing the Post’s calendar.
On June 24th, the Post made a presentation to the Nisei Veterans Committee (NVC) a framed poster of the 21 Medal of Honor recipients from the 442nd Regimental Combat Team comprised of Americans from Japanese descent with a number of them from the Puget Sound area. Mike had drawn the individual portraits and presented them to the Hawaii branch of the NVC earlier in the year. Before he did so, he made the poster to the left and donated it to the Post to present to the local NVC in Seattle. As some of you will recall, we have had several members of their organization speak to us and we were invited to a tour of their facility. The presentation was made at their monthly meeting and Mike was invited to be the guest speaker. Unlike our Post meetings, the widows and wives of members are invited to attend their meetings and they extended that invitation to our spouses. As Commander Jim Traner was out of town attending the Annual Department Conference in Yakima, Senior Vice Commander Rock Roth made the presentation to a packed house of both their members and ours. After I took this picture in my office, we had a brass plate attached to the frame saying that this was “A gift to the Nisei Veterans Committee from VFW Post 8870, Edmonds, WA”.
Fred Apgar is shown here explaining the White Table to the audience estimated to be between 400 to 500 folks, by far the largest in history. In addition, Mike Reagan was the honored speaker and moved the audience with his story of how he became involved in the Fallen Heroes Project. The Boy and Girl Scouts carried and displayed posters of many of 2,600 portraits he has drawn to date. Of course, our Post and the American Legion presented the colors. Our Voice of Democracy winner, Katarina Nguyen, read her essay and did a fine job. It was more or less a ceremony presented by Post 8870 and it was a day in which we remembered our fallen comrades with reverence.