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10/22/2025 - I served as an accounting & finance officer from Dec. 31, 1968, to July 19, 1978, and was Captain when released from active duty. My assignments were at Davis-Monthan AFB; Kimpo AB, South Korea where we all observed a curfew from midnight to 4 a.m. so infiltrators from North Korea could be apprehended; Grissom AFB; Kirtland AFB and Elmendorf AFB. My most interesting jobs were converting U.S. currency to/from Military Payment Certificates for all arriving/departing U.S. ...

10/22/2025 - Ever since I was 8 years old, I wanted to be a Marine. On my 18th birthday, I went into the local recruiting station and tried to enlist in the Marine Corps. They took one look at me, laughed, and sent me away. At 4’11-3/4” I was too short. Heartbroken, I forgot about military service and went on with my life, getting married at age 19 and starting a career in administration. Besides, the attitude of the time among the general population was that a woman who enlisted in ...

9/8/2017 - KANSAS CITY, Mo. – September 11, 2001, is a day Americans will never forget, and this Monday, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S., will pause to remember and reflect on a day that began just like any other, but ended with 2,977 Americans tragically losing their lives in an attack that forever changed our nation. The terrorist attacks 16 years ago vividly demonstrated that freedom comes at a cost, but even out of the twisted steel and rubble, we stand tall to saf...

9/20/2017 - From the marshy coastal plains of the Deep South to the deserts and mountains of the Southwest, Tom Wiseman traveled across the southern U.S. on a fundraising mission for VFW Post 4419 in Clay, W. Va. In June 2016, that part of the Mountain State was devastated by floods that left 24 people dead and hundreds of homes and businesses damaged or destroyed. The losses also included Post 4419's 15-passenger van that was used to take the county’s veterans to receive health car...

8/10/2017 - KANSAS CITY, Mo. — In conjunction with 50th anniversary of the Vietnam War commemoration efforts, the Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is announcing the release of its latest publication, “Brutal Battles of Vietnam: America’s Deadliest Days, 1965 – 1972.” The one-of-a-kind, 480-page book, is the most comprehensive battle history of the war yet published in a single volume. Its easy-to-read chapters convey the essence of combat through swift-moving vignettes ...

8/3/2017 - Drawing has been a part of Mike Rodriguez’s life since childhood, but a wound that ended his military career also put his illustrator tendencies on hold. Rodriguez, who served in Iraq from June to November 2004, with Bravo Co., 1st Bn., 8th Marines, as a rifleman, was wounded on Thanksgiving Day 2004 in Fallujah, Iraq. He was shot, losing nerve feeling and fine-motor skills on his right side. His shoulder was dislocated, he said, and he nearly lost his right leg to compa...

8/3/2017 - Thanks to VFW’s Kahle Fund, nine Vietnam veterans who received Purple Hearts during the war returned to Vietnam in April for an all-expenses-paid excursion. The 10 days in-country included visits to Hanoi, Hue, Danang, Ho Chi Minh City (Saigon) and points in between. Since 2005, 142 wounded Vietnam vets have returned to their former battlefields courtesy of the Ralph Charles Kahle Jr. Endowment Fund, which was established in 1999 following a $1.1 million bequest from Kah...

1/13/2017 - After record flooding killed 23 people and destroyed many small towns in West Virginia last June, VFW members united to provide assistance and seek aid of their own. The June 2016 floods in West Virginia were what the National Weather Service called an “exceptional meteorological event”—one that happens once every 1,000 years. The floods experienced throughout central and southern West Virginia were caused by a “derecho,” or a long line of rapidly moving thunderstorms, l...

1/6/2017 - This article was originally featured in the January 2017 issue of VFW magazine. Carol Bakke knows what veterans who have post-traumatic stress disorder are going through. She’s been there. An Iraq War veteran, Bakke served from 2010 to 2011 with the 778th transportation company with the Army National Guard as a heavy equipment transporter. An explosively formed projectile hit her team on July 18, 2011. When she returned stateside, the dreams and nightmares started — dr...

11/13/2017 - The Vietnam Veterans Memorial was dedicated 35 years ago on Nov. 13, 1982. Since then, more than 100 million people have visited the iconic structure, according to Jan Scruggs, founder of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The National Parks Service noted that nearly 5.6 million people visited in 2016, making it the nation’s second-most popular memorial or monument. The Lincoln Memorial in Washington, D.C., was the top attraction with nearly 8 million visitors last year...