WWII Veterans Honored
Flag Day June 14, 2009
WWII Veterans Honored
I am on our Legion Honor Guard, one of our past commanders Bill Kaufman had noticed that we had lost a lot of our WWII Veterans last year. So he said we should find a day and get them all together for a picture. Well it took some time to get the right day for the picture. We finally picked “Flag Day” because all of our snow birds would be back for the summer. Also it was a date close to the “D-Day Anniversary”. The Flag Day program is always put on by the Grand Haven Elk’s Lodge with support from the American Legion and the VFW. I asked the chairman Mike Lankes from the Elk’s Fag Day Committee if we could be part of their program that day. He said YES.
I had told the VFW Commander Darrell Thornley about what I had planed. He was very pleased because he is a WWII, Korea and Vietnam Veteran. So we worked together to get American Legion and VFW members to spread the word to the community so we could get as many WWII Veterans. Our local newspaper ran an article for us.
When I told members from our Legion Riders about what we wanted to do. They came up with the idea to escort our WWII Veterans from the Waterfront Stadium where the Flag Day program was and to also cook a dinner for the WWII Veterans and their guests.
We had a great day, 68 WWII veterans came to the Flag Day program and had a wonderful dinner. Lots of the veterans stayed late and just talked to old friends and made some new friends that day.
The wonderful people from Sgt. Grit helped me get them all the special WWII Veterans Pin (15908). You made their day. Lots of them wondered where I found a Great pin like that. I told them about Sgt. Grit. I want to thank all of you at Sgt. Grit for helping me get the pins so I could have them for Flag Day when I found out I needed more pins with only 3 days to go.
Grand Haven, Mi.
American Legion Post #28
2nd Vice Commander
David L. MacKellar “Mack”
ex-marine, Sgt. Mack 1970-74 Semper Fi