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Bessemer’s VFW supports today’s wounded vets with a big donation

Printed in this weekend’s edition of The Birmingham News:

Over the years, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1762 in Bessemer has dwindled.

Twice-a-week bingo stopped in 2006. Enrollment has fallen to 90, and 89 of those are veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam.

Yet one thing hasn’t diminished — a dedication to helping other veterans in need.

Once a month the post does bingo night for veterans in a Tuscaloosa nursing home. Every patient wins coupons to buy sundries.

But next week Commander Paul Calhoun and Quartermaster James Mosier will make the post’s biggest donation ever.

The post will pay $50,000 for naming rights for a duplex being built at the Lakeshore Foundation campus. It’s one of 10 new residences that will offer free lodging for injured veterans and their families when they come to Lakeshore for free Lima Foxtrot programs.

In Lima Foxtrot, injured veterans learn to be active and independent through recreation or sport — despite blindness, amputation, paralysis or other severe injury.

Since 2006, about 800 military service members have gone through the program, but they stayed in dorms while family members had to stay elsewhere.

The new housing effort, dubbed Operation Lakeshore, will change that.

The entire family — including children — will live together on campus. Ground was broken on the $2.3 million project April 5, and the new residences, with their private, home-like atmosphere, will open on Veterans Day.

Calhoun, 80 years old and post commander for the past 18 years, had been looking for a deserving project. The retired U.S. Air Force technical sergeant knew that if the post ever has to close, remaining assets will go to the state VFW. Instead, he hoped to find a local charity to support with money the post has raised from bingo, investment and dues.

“A lot of our people were getting older,” Mosier said.

When Calhoun and Mosier heard about Operation Lakeshore, they invited Mike Mouron, president of Capstone Companies, his wife, Kathy, and veteran Noah Galloway to tell them more at a post meeting earlier this month.

Kathy Mouron was the one who came up with the idea of building the cottages as a charitable effort, which her husband leads. More than 90 companies have donated nearly $2 million in labor, materials and money.

Galloway, an Iraq veteran who lost one arm and one leg in a roadside bombing, did most of the speaking.

He told post members how much he appreciates Vietnam-era veterans, and said he regretted how they had been treated when they returned from the war. Several of the Bessemer veterans audibly said, “Thank you.”

He told them he signed up for the Army right after 9/11 and was in the first invasion of Iraq with the 101st Airborne “Screaming Eagles.” He told them that he re-upped for a second tour, during which his Humvee triggered a roadside bomb on a night patrol.

Galloway told the post how the cottages will serve injured veterans as they try to gain confidence through physical activities, and how much having families with them will help.

After the Mourons and Galloway left, the members of Post 1762 voted. The decision to make the gift was unanimous.

“This is going to be the largest donation the post has made anywhere,” said Mosier. “This donation is going to help veterans, and that’s what our job is.”

To help furnish the duplex, the post plans to donate photographs of veterans who were VFW members. Even as the older soldiers fade away, a plaque on the door and the historical photographs on the walls will be lasting tributes to Bessemer’s proud VFW post, and a memorial to its many wartime veterans.

Korean War vets still looking out for each other

Printed in yesterday’s Times Daily:

The Korean War, a conflict between neighboring North Korea and South Korea that still simmers, may have ended 56 years ago Monday, but the camaraderie among servicemen remains to this day.

Instead of looking out for each other on mine-sweeping ships and during stealth underwater operations, the aging Korean War veterans help each other with medical appointments, mowing lawns and sharing car rides.

The Korean War veterans were remembered nationwide Monday, the anniversary of the war ending in 1953.

The Korean War – known to many as the Forgotten War – began after unification between North Korea and South Korea failed and the northern neighbor invaded the south June 25, 1950.

The United States military was fatigued after World War II ended and the Korean War ushered in the beginning of the Cold War.

Since the early 1960s, the Northwest Alabama Korean War Veterans Association in Sheffield has tried to attract local Korean War veterans to the organization, while also bringing awareness of the war efforts that many veterans say is rarely mentioned.

The Korean War Veterans Memorial, 19 sculptures of servicemen among juniper bushes, in Washington highlights the war effort.

The local association boasts nearly 200 members in nine counties, some too elderly to be active.

Back in 1951, James Taylor entered the Navy service where he spent two years fighting in the Korean War, out of a total of 10 years in the Navy. Taylor, now president of the veterans association, emphasized that – like the war effort – the strength of a group is important, not necessarily the individuals.

Taylor, who joined the Navy at 19, worked on a sweep mine control ship in the Wonsan Harbor region. He helped run boats from the control ship to support vessels that provided food, water and mine sweeping equipment. Now 77, Taylor said he hopes to bring awareness of the Korean War and to foster camaraderie among other Korean vets.

“We have no agenda, no ax to grind,” he said of the group that meets once every other month for breakfast to share stories from the past and offer help to each other.

He said it’s discouraging to read the obituaries in the morning newspaper and seeing a Korean War veteran who wasn’t known to the group.

“Our whole mission is to let Korean veterans come sit with us,” Taylor said.

The group will next meet for their annual picnic at Veterans Park on Sept. 12.

Bill Gober, then a 22-year-old in the First Marine Division, stayed in Korea from Sept. 15, 1950, to April 5, 1951, helping with amphibious operations to land troops from ship to shore.

The war resulted in 54,000 casualties in three years and 8,700 who remain classified as missing in action.

“We just never had the recognition that we feel we deserve,” Gober said.

For further information, contact: James Taylor at 256-383-8172 or Bill Gober at 256-383-7719

Local heroes honored in ceremony

Courtesy of the North Jefferson News:

Newton Duke was honored June 7 at Gardendale First Baptist Church during a ceremony in which he received his Purple Heart medal more than 50 years after he earned it in Korea.

Above, Ronnie Guin of Mt. Olive, a member of the Dixie Division Military Vehicles Club, drives Newton Duke to the ceremony.

In the back seat is Duke’s grandson, Sgt. Chase Duke. During the ceremony, Duke pinned an End of Tour award onto his grandson for meritorious service while serving in Afghanistan.

Right, Lt. Gen. Kevin Campbell, the commanding general of Army Space and Missile Defense Command/Army Forces Strategic Command at Redstone Arsenal in Huntsville, pins the Purple Heart onto Duke.