If you look up on the hill above the old paper mill as you drive along Highway 99E in Oregon City, Oregon, you may catch a glimpse of the Three Rivers VFW building — a Quonset style structure at the end of the Mcloughlin trail with an unobstructed view of Willamette Falls.
The building, built in 1949 after World War II, gave a permanent home to the then 25-year-old Waldo Caufield VFW Post which formed on Feb. 17, 1925. The Post, which changed its name to Three Rivers after the absorption of the Harold E. Moore Post in Gladstone and the Albert DeForrest Fromong Post in West Linn, celebrated its 100-year anniversary in February.
The highlight of the celebration was the unveiling of the bronze plaques.
“That’s part of the showcase for the 100th is this bronze plaque being refurbished. When they made the plaque in 1949, they had the plaque dedicated to all the Clackamas County veterans that died in the Spanish-American War, World War I and World War II,” said Greg Arnold, a West Linn resident who has been VFW Post 1324 commander since 2018. “We thought it would be great to honor the subsequent conflicts — Korean War, Vietnam, Desert Storm and Iran-Afghanistan War on Terror — all the names from Clackamas County.”
After the unveiling, the Post had an open house with a cake-cutting ceremony.
The Post is not defined by the building. The Post is the men and women, the veterans, who give their time and talents to support other veterans and the community in which they live.
“It helped me relieve a lot of my PSTD and some of that just by having somebody to talk to about your experiences,” said veteran Dale Miller, who served in the Army during the Vietnam War from 1967 to 1970 and has been a member of the Post for 15 years.
Edited for length, this story was written by Ethan M. Rogers and originally appeared in the Oregon City News.
This article is featured in the 2025 March issue of Checkpoint. If you're a VFW member and don't currently receive the VFW Checkpoint, please contact VFW magazine at magazine@vfw.org.