Commentary – Page 19 – Ballard Eagleson Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 3063

105 year-old WWII Vet Joins Post During Birthday Party

By Harold Rodenberger

A few weeks ago, Julie Small called our office wondering if we could help celebrate her father’s 105th birthday. Since her father had served in the Army in World War II she thought it would be appropriate if some VFW members could attend the birthday celebration and render honors to her father.

On Sept. 16, Color Guard Captain Joe Fitzgerald, and I arrived at the birthday celebration for Joseph Alex Small. Family and friends gathered around as we congratulated him on his birthday, presented two small American Flags, and his new VFW cap. Near the end of our visit, he whispered in my ear, “I feel overwhelmed.”

As Joe and I left the party and returned to our homes, I reflected on the feelings of love, friendship, and community I had felt there. In addition to Julie and Alex’s son Tom, who had flown up from his home in Texas, there were other family members, neighbors and friends from various backgrounds and circumstances, united in celebrating this momentous occasion.

Sometimes I feel near overwhelmed by all the news of rancor, hate, and divisiveness that bombards us daily. Then I see and feel the powerful feelings of good will at an occasion such as this and am reassured that there are millions of good people in every corner of our country. They gather at homes, schools, churches and other places simply to be together and celebrate some special event.

Good will and friendship usually don’t make the news but it’s good to remember that such feelings are alive and well despite news to the contrary.

Quartermaster’s Update (September 2017)

It’s been said that all things change. Geological change appears unchanging to us while Moore’s Law concerning computing seems to allow change so rapid we can hardly follow.

As we grow older we change physically and mentally. It seems just yesterday I was a young man with many goals, working hard and supporting a family. Suddenly I realize I’m an old man having achieved many of those goals, approaching the winter of my life and finding the changes in our world and country almost incomprehensible.

Change is happening in our post as well. Commander Krawitz has changed our meeting format with the post meeting together with our auxiliary in the large hall followed by separate business meetings, with the post remaining in the large hall and the auxiliary moving to the smaller room. Starting the monthly meeting together with our auxiliary promotes teamwork and encourages shared goals. It looks to me like a good change.

Yoga class resumes on 9/16 when our yoga teacher, Alicia, returns from vacation. If you want to change your body and mind, even temporarily, come on out for yoga, it stretches your body and mind while enriching your spirit.

Our spaghetti feed fund raiser on September 9th changed from years past when it was held in the spring. Buy your tickets early and take advantage of the advance raffle ticket sales. Hard to beat 30 tickets for twenty dollars and it’s a good way to increase your odds of winning your favorite prize.

Speaking of, there are many wonderful prizes for the fund-raising raffle. Local businesses have generously contributed some wonderful gifts just waiting for your lucky draw. Mark your calendar, buy your tickets and let’s have a great time while raising money for our post relief fund.

We have received many flags deserving of respectful retirement so we are changing our flag retirement ceremony from one to two this month. First one will start at 10:00 a.m. on the sixth and the second will start at 11:30, September 13th, after yoga.

Now for some personal change. After 42 years in Magnolia, my wife and I are selling our house and moving farther north, or east, or maybe south or west. We’ve gotten older, the place was convenient to downtown and our VFW post but change reigns eternal so we decided we couldn’t wait any longer to change home locations. If we find a place close enough to Ballard, I’ll stay active in the post and even if our new home is farther way, I’ll work with whoever you choose to take on the responsibility of quartermaster in the future.

As these changes happen, each of us must contribute what we can to further our VFW goals.
I wish everyone in our post more success during the months and years ahead.

From the Commander (September 2017)

By Pete Krawitz

Comrades,

On August 12th, Comrade Rodenberger and I attended the Department of Washington’s “School of Instruction” in Everett. This event gave us the opportunity to hear from our new State Commander (John Bradburn) and Auxiliary President (Laurie Lukas). They discussed their vision/theme for the 2017/2018 calendar year. Department’s theme this year is TEAM – Together Everyone Achieves More. The State Leadership team is particularly interested in the VFW and Auxiliary working together to achieve more.

Post 3063 is already making some changes to work more closely with our own Auxiliary. Earlier this month, I met with our Auxiliary president (Margaret Philips) to discuss some ideas and plan a few small changes that will hopefully increase the collaboration between our two groups. We will announce a few of these minor changes at our September business meeting.

While the summer is coming to a close, we do have a great event planned to see us into the fall. Our annual Spaghetti Dinner and Raffle Fundraiser will be held on September 9th. We hope to see you, your family, and your friends there! While we are on the topic of fundraisers, if you have any ideas or wish to lead a fundraiser down the road, please let me know. I’ve already had a few members approach me with some great ideas.

Lastly, have you ever wondered which pieces of legislation the VFW supports? You can find the list here at this website: http://capwiz.com/vfw/issues/bills/.

Quartermaster’s Update (August 2017)

By Harold Rodenberger

July was a busy month around our post. The first day of the month saw your quartermaster setting off on a fishing trip. My name was drawn from those recruiting at least five new or reinstated members so I joined the other lucky winners fishing for salmon out of Westport. Kudos to the members of Westport VFW Post 3057 who played host. Afterward, State Commander Elmer Clark passed out prizes for largest fish, first fish, etc., and celebrated our state achieving 100% membership.

On the third of July, our yoga leader, Alicia Brill, led five people through the one-hour yoga class held every Wednesday morning from 0930-1030 in our post hall. It’s an exercise in rejuvenation for body and mind, no matter your skill or physical condition. Why not come to the post on Wednesday mornings and try something new and invigorating?

Commander Pete Krawitz conducted our July business meeting in a new format, highlighted by a joint session with our auxiliary in the main hall, where Pete reviewed the goals of the VFW and his goals for our post during the coming year. Pete has some refreshing ideas to breathe new life into our post and auxiliary. I encourage each of you to attend our meetings, learn about Pete’s plans and be inspired to help yourself and your post grow.

Our new librarian, Norm Limric, has worked with books for many years and is enthusiastic about maintaining and expanding our library. In today’s flood of rapid-fire social media and sound bites, why not visit our post library and renew your acquaintance with some comforting friends in the form of old fashioned books?

Chef Kay Seelig put together an amazing dinner for our third-Thursday Social. The meal of steam-baked Sockeye salmon, buttered boiled small potatoes, corn and shrimp salad and rhubarb-strawberry crisp was universally praised as being her best dinner yet. This month will bring a new adventure in fine dining at your social night dinner so mark the third Thursday (August 17th) and plan to attend.

Speaking of marking calendars, our annual charity fund raiser in September (Sept. 9) is rapidly approaching. You can buy tickets ($20 each) from post members. We are already receiving some valuable raffle prizes. This year, raffle tickets are available in advance for a discounted price so ask your ticket seller to let you in on that special deal and increase your odds of winning. For questions or tickets, contact Event Chair Russ Seelig at 206-423-1150.

From the Commander (August 2017)

By Pete Krawitz

As I write this month’s column, I’ve had the live video stream of the VFW national convention in New Orleans on in the background via the VFW’s Facebook page. Even though I wasn’t able to join our Seattle delegates this year, I can still listen in and see some of the same speakers. It’s encouraging to see the VFW leveraging technology to make these conventions more accessible to folks that are unable to attend.

Hopefully, our post will be able to leverage the same technology in the future, making some of our meetings more accessible to those who have difficulties making it in each month. With that being said, I did recently attend (physically not virtually) my first department (Washington State) VFW convention down in Olympia. It was a very positive experience. We were able to meet with some of our comrades from all over Washington state. While technology is great, nothing beats the face-to-face experience of a convention. If you haven’t had a chance to attend one of the state conventions or mid-winter conferences, I highly recommend it.

For those of you who were able to attend the business meeting in July, I hope you liked the new format we are experimenting with. For those of you that weren’t able to make it; we are now meeting in the main hall and will be kicking off the first 10 minutes of each meeting with the auxiliary to give us an opportunity to announce and discuss items that impact both groups. We also started using a projector to display the meeting agenda, enabling everyone to follow along with what is going on and to make the most of the hour we get to discuss business together each month. We will still stay true to the VFW rituals and ceremonies, just with a few slight modifications. I truly value your opinions and feedback, so please feel free to reach out to me if you have any ideas or comments on how we might be able to get the most value out of our monthly meetings.

One last thing I’d like to touch on is communication. I’ve been working with Adjutant Alyson Teeter to come up with a plan on how we communicate with the post on a regular basis. The post officers are often bombarded via email with offers, solicitations for volunteers, advertisements for local veteran events, etc. While we would love to pass these items along to everyone via e-mail, we don’t want to spam our entire membership base. At this point, we will only be sending you one communication a month (the newsletter), however, we would like to allow individuals to “opt-in” to other communications if they are interested. We often put these “extra” communications out on our Facebook page, but acknowledge that not everyone is on that platform. Hopefully, we will have more information in the next month or two on how you can opt-in for these additional communications.

I look forward to seeing you at our next business meeting.