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Jack Picciolo has been working for nearly a decade to help homeless veterans receive proper burials. That work, along with other projects in his Illinois community, earned the Vietnam veteran the Illinois Veterans’ Patriotic Volunteer and Appreciation Award. For Picciolo, the recognition meant more because of who it came from. “It was f...
KANSAS CITY, Mo. – In the true spirit of Memorial Day, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. (VFW) is collaborating withAce Hardware to honor veterans by pledging to give out 1 million American-made flags nationwide. On Saturday, May 26, consumers are encouraged to visit participating Ace stores to receive a free 8” x 12” Ameri...
In January, VFW Post 2298 in the Chicago suburb of West Dundee, Ill., was filled to the brim with car seats, diaper bags, baby toys and formula, to name just a few of the items. For the third year in a row, the Auxiliary hosted a baby shower for women vets in the Northern Illinois VA System. Auxiliary President Diane Ahrens said the shower was open...
Department Commander Dwight Fuhrman has been contacting legislators to encourage the support of bills that would eliminate all smoking in private member-based clubs in the commonwealth. Member-based groups, such as VFW, are exempted from Pennsylvania’s Clean Indoor Air Act (CIAA), which was passed a decade ago. Fuhrman said some of his Depart...
A U.S. Navy veteran and member of VFW Post 912 donated $10,000 to help the hall on North Main Street recover after Hurricane Harvey. The hall, which had about 18 inches of water inside during the storm, needed a slew of repairs, and bills were starting to rack up. That’s when one member, Chris Lahowetz, owner of Electromagnetic Industries on ...
“It was just so overwhelming that this crazy idea I had actually worked,” said Amy Jo Lett, past Auxiliary 5675 president and current District 6 Auxiliary president. A man had called the Post asking for the person “in charge” of the sign. “They told him it was me, and my number is all over Facebook and all over flyers ...
Ponce Inlet Realty, also in Port Orange, donated hats, about 40 mats and five boxes of premium potato chips to the Post, along with $5,000, which the Post is putting toward a new generator. Rosa said his two sons-in-law and two grandchildren helped him distribute those items to the homeless who were waiting for a shuttle to a local church. “I...
Mylee Cardenas met Gamalier Rosa while helping hurricane victims in Puerto Rico last year, and their interaction proved that VFW stereotypes are wrong. “Sometimes it’s easy to think it’s very old school [and there’s] not something there for you,” said Cardenas, executive director of Warfighter DRT (disaster response te...
After losing his leg in an IED explosion while serving in Afghanistan, Kionte Storey has hiked to two of the highest points in the world. Storey, who served in Iraq (2008 to February 2009) and Afghanistan (2010) with the 3rd Bn., 7th Marines as a basic infantry rifleman, said when he reached the summit of Mount Vinson in Antarctica in 2013, it was ...
Gary LaGrange is a soldier first and a beekeeper second. The VFW member served three tours during the Vietnam War. Two were in the I Corps region of South Vietnam — 1967-68 with the 198th Light Infantry Brigade and 1968-69 with the 196th Light Infantry Brigade. He then served 18 months between 1971-73 in Laos with the Military Advisory Group ...
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