the vet connection...a s i have completed four months as club pres-ident, i have come to the...
TRANSCRIPT
As I have completed
four months as club pres-ident, I have come to the conclusion that in this position, you have to have three bones; a funny bone, a wish bone, and a back bone. It has been an amazing ride thus far and I hope, for the majority of club members, you are seeing the hard work your Board of Directors are doing on your behalf. You know, you don’t get harmony if everyone is singing the same note, and as a result, we’ve seen positive changes in
missions, social events, and club meetings. My thanks to everyone for your support and posi-tive comments when I see you around the cam-pus. We have more to do this year, so stay with us to see how it all goes.
It was wonderful to see nearly 70 people (players, spectators, fam-ily, and friends) show up at the inaugural Military Services Bocce Tourna-ment! Of course, we need to congratulate the United States Marine Corps for taking top hon-ors and going undefeated
throughout the day long event. My thanks to those that volunteered to work the tournament; Bob Paquin, Dan Bos-ley, Roger Francis, Mike Wertheimer, Mike Ponting, Paul Bernard, Les Kessler, and Bob Meizinger. Special thanks to Bill Hohman for building the spectacular score-board! Very special thanks to our Tourna-
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“The Vet Connection” is
a monthly newsletter for
the members of the Trilo-
gy Veteran’s Club. If you
have an article that you
would like published,
please send to Scott Duke
Dates for monthly meetings (Meetings start at 4:00 pm)
From the President Page 1
Meet a Vet Pag 3
Veterans Support GVV
Page 4
Adopt-A-Street Update
Page 5
Membership Up-date
Page 6
Who am I? Page 7
Thirsty Troop Thursday
Page 7
The Board Page 8
Veterans Outreach Center Update
Page 11
Bocce Tournament Pictures
Page 13
Agenda Page 15
In this Issue...
The Vet Connection
May 2018 Volume 2 Issue 5
From the President
Scott Duke
January 30, 2018 June 26, 2018
February 27, 2018 July 31, 2018
March 27, 2018 August 28, 2018
April 24, 2018 September 25, 2018
May 29, 2018 October 30, 2018
ment Director, Mike Pagliarulo. We are hoping to do this again in 2019.
If anyone doubts that our club is helping military veterans in need, one should look no further than the Veterans Outreach Cen-ter and the leadership of mission leader Chris Salzer (Army). With club members support (in most cases their spouse), we have filled 100% of the food and beverage items for each month since February (when the mis-sion started). Check out Chris’ article on page 11 to see how things went for the May food ser-vice and look for a link from Chris this month for food items needed for the June meal.
Our guest speaker series con-tinues this month and I am so excited about having a World War II pilot meet and visit with the club. Brig Gen (retired)
Dave Woellner (97 years old) will offer comments about his time during the war. Our own club member, John Polli (USAF) met with Gen Woellner and heard some of the stories he will talk about and trust me, you want to be in attendance for his talk.
We will continue the tradition of hiking up the Vietnam Memo-rial Trail this Memorial Day (May 28th). We will meet at the trailhead at 0730 and head-up the trail. Once at the top, we will play the national anthem and have a few words to say about the holiday. I hope you can make it. For those that, for physical reasons, cannot hike the trail, we
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The Vet Connection Page 2
have a video on our club website (tvaveteransclub.weebly.com) taken by club member Jack Todd (USAF). This will give you an up-close and personal view of the trail.
The golf committee, led by club member Nancy Duke (USAF) is going well and the website will be open soon. Registration will be around the September timeframe and Nancy will keep everyone posted on how things are going. Thanks to her team, Les Kessler, Ian Gale, Jim Brager, and Marv Shadman, efforts on now underway to find sponsorship and donations.
Operation Backpack will begin next month with our mission leader, Bill Morse (USMC), taking care of business. We have accepted 22 Dollar Tree stores for weekly pick-up and have seven (7) volunteers so far that will do the pick-ups and deliver to our storage center on Beardsley. To kick things off, our meeting this month will have a jar available for your $10 donation (check out poster on page 10). This is not mandatory nor are we twisting any arms. This was mentioned dur-ing our April meeting and I thought it was a good idea, so here we are. I am also happy to report that Corte Bella Veterans will be doing the same during their May meeting, and the Vistancia Veterans are meeting in June and will take a look at how they can help. Backpacks collected will stay in Arizona with 60% of them going to Luke AFB families, and 40% going to military families in Yuma.
Have a good month everyone!
Mountain View Magazine High-lights Trilogy Veterans Club
T he Mountain View Magazine, which is a publication that is delivered to residents of Trilogy and the Vistancia community, will highlight the Trilogy Veterans Club in their June issue.
The article will feature several pictures of club members “in ac-tion” as well as explaining the mission of the club and how they sup-port military veterans in need.
Make sure you look for this magazine (Mountain View) next month and read all about our club and the volunteer work being completed by members of the club. The magazine comes directly to your snail mail box.
O ur “Meet a Vet” this month is Frank Priore (USMC).
Frank was born in San Jose, California on Dec. 7,1938 and grew up in nearby Los Gatos. He graduated fromhigh school in 1957 and was approached by a Marine recruiter who told him of a new program which involved 6 months on active duty and 7 1/2 years in the active reserves. He started his ac-tive duty at MCRD San Diego. Frank was at MCRD 30 days before our own Bill Morse arrived. After graduating from Boot Camp he completed his 6 months at Camp Pendleton for Infantry training. When he returned home he enrolled at Santa Rosa Jr. College and
graduated from San Jose State College with a major in Public Administration. Because of his moving he was required to transfer to several different Reserve units. His various units found him dealing with radar con-trolled weapons, air delivery, and cold weather training in the California Sierra mountains. Frank started his career in Santa Cruz and Solano Counties, California in the Personnel Departments. In 1969 he was offered the Personnel Directors position with the City of Fort Worth Texas. After ten years he moved to the same position in Eugene Oregon. In 1985 he moved back to California with the City of Lompoc, five miles from Vandenberg AFB. He be-came City Manager in 1995 and retired in 2002 after 37 years in public employment. Frank and Marilyn have been married for 56 years, have 2 daughters, 1 son and 6 grandchildren. He and Marilyn moved to Trilogy in January of 2017.
The Vet Connection Page 3
O n April 14th, club members Bill Holman, Dave Wagie, and I joined forces with Airmen Diana Jimenez, Taylor Strain, and Cora Ruth at the
US Vets facility on Grand Avenue. Our mission was to empty, reorganize and repack four forty-foot conex stor-age containers. The contents of the containers included office furniture and equipment, living room furniture, kitchen appliances, and boxes of miscellaneous items. We also moved about four truck loads of items across campus to containers used to store donated goods.. We completed our mission at 1100hrs then went to The burger Shoppe where we enjoyed lunch and relaxing conversa-
tion. Our next US Vets mission was on April 28th. Ernie Byers and I teamed up with Airmen Averi Romano and Jeff Nest. Our mission was to remove, reorganize and move about 10 filing cabinets and about 200 banker boxes from a small conex container to a larger one. We also moved three truck loads of furniture to the dona-tion containers. Because of the heat, we terminated the mission at 1130hrs leaving about 100 of the boxes left to be moved. Ernie and I then treated the Airmen to lunch at Mel's Diner. It is said that experience is the best teacher. Well, we've learned a few thing while volunteering at US Vets:
1. Know the mission details 2. Staff accordingly (make sure you have enough personnel to do the job 3. Begin the mission as early in the day as possible, especially in the summer
Veterans
Support
Grand Veterans Village
Bob Henry
The Vet Connection Page 4
Dave Wagie, SSgt Jimenez, SrA Ruth, Bob Henry, Bill Hohman,
A1C Strain
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Adopt-A-Street
Bruce Murray
W e had seven folks show up for the Adopt a Street on the 28th; Lo-
gan Brown from LAFB came to help again. Mike Wertheimer, Larry DiGiovanni, Bruce Strand, Boris Spitz, and Melvyn Mitofski. We had enough folks to do El Mirage, Vistancia in front of Trilogy to the main gate, and Vistancia to the second bridge toward High-way 303; picking up quite a bit of trash. Susan DiGiovanni pre-pared a wonderful breakfast!!!
In May we are doing the clean-up on the 19th to avoid the Me-morial Day holiday weekend; however, I will still be in Hawaii. So Scott Duke will cover for me.
It is getting hot quickly so we will now start at 0700 each month. Also, our Airmen volunteers will not be required to wear their uniform. Just too hot!!
M ajor veterans organizations on Friday backed the new
effort by Congress to pass legislation that would pro-
vide $4.2 billion to extend the Veterans Choice pro-
gram while greatly expanding the caregivers program
for families of disabled vets.
The American Legion and the Disabled American Veterans both endorsed the bill introduced by Rep. Phil Roe, R-Tennessee, chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee. The bill would also order a review of the facilities and inventory of the Department of Veterans Affairs.
Congress offered similar legislation last year, but the programs were left out of the $1.3 billion omnibus spending pack-age that passed in March and was reluctantly signed by President Donald Trump.
Roe has claimed the backing of Sen. Johnny Isakson, R-Georgia, chairman of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee,
and Sen. Jon Tester, D-Montana, the committee's ranking member. Trump reportedly has signaled that he will sign the
new bill.
Acting VA Secretary Robert Wilkie has warned that the current Veterans Choice Program, which allows for the out-sourcing of VA health care to the private sector, will run out of funding next month unless Congress acts.
Vets Groups Back 2nd Try on Choice,
Caregiver Programs
O ver the last several months, we have had some great activities. These events have not only helped veterans get back on their feet but allow our membership get to know each other better
through social and fun activities. Your Board of Directors' focus over the past several months has not only been increasing out membership but more importantly members retention.
Currently, we have 144 members representing all U.S. services as
well as members from Canada and England. Our community not only recognizes the TVC by our red shirts and white hats but as well as the good deeds we do in the Trilogy com-munity and the Phoenix valley. There has been a few changes we are trying to keep our members better in-
formed. First, when a new member joins the club, they receive an e-mail with a welcome letter from our President, Scot Duke, and a TVC brochure of our BODs and mission leaders. Second, we are constantly up-dating our TVC website, tvaveteranclub.weebly.com, with information and pictures of our activities, and
most importantly listening to your input on how we can better the Club and your experience.
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Membership Update
Mark Grindle
M ission Leader, Chris Salzer will be sending out a link to Sign-up Genius for June’s menu (Veterans Outreach Center). Items fill up quickly, so as soon as
you get the link, I recommend you head over to the site and see what is available to provide. This mission provides a home-cooked (Crock-pot) meal to homeless military veterans at the Veterans Outreach Center in Phoenix.
Do you know who I am?
I am a member of the Trilogy Veterans Club and served in the United States Army.
Answer can be found on page 15
A nother “OK” crowd at our monthly favorite watering hole (V’s Taproom) as
nearly 20 “red shirts” showed up to enjoy a drink or two, a story or two, or an appetizer or two! Thanks to
everyone that came out to support our club’s social event of each month.
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Thirsty Troop Thursday!
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PRESIDENT
Scott Duke
SECRETARY Mark Grindle
VICE-PRESIDENT
Bob Meizinger
Member-at-Large Richard Brown
TREASURER Les Kessler
Member-at-Large
Bruce Murray
Member-at-Large
Joe Ingalls
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C ongratulations to Bob Prow! Bob was the winner of the club’s monthly raffle. He won a $25 giftcard to IHOP restuarant
For this month, in lieu of a raffle, we are taking up $10 donations for Operation Homefront’s “Back-to-School Brigade.” See page 10 for details.
The Vet Connection Page 10
T he meals for the veterans and the VOC was a great and fun event for all of us that participated.
The main course was lasagna, with rolls, bananas, cookies and soda and was very well received. We had some of the vets come up and tell us we could serve the lasagna again. We served 38 people and many had sec-onds and some thirds.
I was joined by my wingman, John Polli (front-right) as a driv-er, along with our fantastic TVC volunteers (from R-L), Richard Brown, Jim Long, Chris Salzer, Bill Hohman, Joe Ingalls, and our lone Airmen, Matt Helm.
I do believe that I can say, this was fun and we were all thanked by everyone for the food and our caring to bring them all a meal.
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Veterans Outreach Center
Chris Salzer
VA conducts Health Sur-vey for OEF/OIF/OND
Veterans
T he VA is conducting a health survey of vet-erans who served after September 11, 2001.
The Comparative Health Assessment Interview (CHAI) is designed to study the health and well-being of veterans who served during Operation En-during Freedom (OEF), Operation Iraqi Freedom (OIF), and Operation New Dawn (OND).
Researchers are looking at the physical and mental health, employment, and social relation-ships of veterans who were deployed to combat zones, those that did not, and similar civilians. VA's goal is to enroll 13,500 pre-selected adults in this study, including:
4,500 Veterans deployed to OEF/OIF/OND
4,500 Veterans who served during OEF/OIF/OND but were not deployed
T rilogy Veterans Club (TVC) shirts, hats, bricks, and coins are for sale. Prices are below. Please fill out the form (website) and send or
hand to Mark Grindle (Secretary) during our monthly meeting.
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Customized Brick Club Coin
Polo Shirt Tee Shirt
H ere is a look at the agenda for this month’s meeting of the Veterans Club. We hope to see you there!
Meeting comes to order at 1600
Pledge of Allegiance
Membership Update
Guest speaker: Brig Gen Don Woellen
Old business
New business
Good of the Club
Adjourn
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If you thought it was Stu Bernstein, you would be correct!