VFW Post 8564 & Auxiliary

08/26/2026

07/26/2026

God bless our Women Veterans! Thank you and all our Veterans for your service to our great country ❤ 🇺🇸 ❤

Her plane touched down in Vietnam on August 2, 1968.

She was 22 years old. She was a nurse. She was scared. She was brave. She was ready .

The blast of heat and the smell of jet fuel and sewage hit her first. Then she saw the GIs with M16s and bandoliers of ammunition slung across their chests .

Three days later, she traded her skirt and heels for jungle fatigues and combat boots. She choppered to her ultimate destination — the 36th Evacuation Hospital in Vũng Tàu .

It was a 400-bed evacuation hospital.

Her first day on the burn ward, the temperature inside was 105 degrees. No air conditioning. Only the OR, ICU, and Recovery Room had that luxury. Huge floor fans chased around the fetid air. It didn't matter for her. But it mattered for the wounded GIs whose suffering was greatly compounded by the heat .

She saw the best of America in those hospital beds, working side by side with hundreds of brave men and women .

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Here is the unforgettable detail.

There were no women on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The Wall listed 58,300 names. All men. Eight women were hidden among them — nurses who died in service. But there was no statue of a woman. No recognition of the 11,000 who served. No acknowledgment of the 265,000 who served around the world during the Vietnam era .

One woman changed that.

Her name was Diane Carlson Evans. She was a nurse in Vietnam in 1968-69. She served in the burn unit of the 36th Evacuation Hospital in Vũng Tàu and at Pleiku in the 71st Evacuation Hospital .

She came home in 1969 to a country she hardly recognized. She was a mother of four. She was a wife. She was a nurse. She was a veteran .

And she was invisible.

In 1982, she visited the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, D.C. The Wall was beautiful. It was powerful. It was healing. But it didn't honor the women .

She decided to change that.

She founded the Vietnam Women's Memorial Project in 1984 . She had no money. She had no influence. She had no power. She had only hope.

She led a ten-year struggle.

She testified before every Congressional and federal agency hearing in Washington, D.C. regarding site and design approval for the Vietnam Women's Memorial . She raised $5 million through grassroots efforts . She lobbied Congress and federal agencies .

People told her it was impossible. They said women didn't belong on the Mall. They said women weren't part of the war. They said women weren't veterans.

She didn't listen.

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In 1993, the Vietnam Women's Memorial was dedicated on the National Mall, near the Wall . It was the first memorial in Washington, D.C. to honor women veterans. Vice President Al Gore spoke. Veterans cheered. Women wept .

The statue shows three women. One is caring for a wounded soldier. One is looking for help. One is kneeling in prayer .

It represents the 265,000 women who served. The 11,000 who were in Vietnam. The 8 who died .

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Diane Carlson Evans said: "Women are also soldiers. Women also need to heal. Their service is worthy of honor and recognition" .

The eight women on the Wall are :

· Capt. Eleanor Alexander — plane crash, November 1967
· 1st Lt. Hedwig Orlowski — plane crash, November 1967
· 1st Lt. Sharon Lane — shrapnel wounds, June 1969
· 2nd Lt. Pamela Donovan — illness, July 1968
· Lt. Col. Annie Graham — illness, August 1968
· 2nd Lt. Carol Drazba — helicopter crash, February 1966
· 2nd Lt. Elizabeth Jones — helicopter crash, February 1966
· Capt. Mary Therese Klinker — plane crash, April 1975

They were all volunteers. Most were in their early 20s. They came from towns across the country. They worked long hours under grueling conditions .

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That is the hidden history. Not the famous generals and the famous battles. But the nurses who served. The women who saved lives. The 11,000 who were ignored. The one woman who fought back.

She won. The memorial stands. The women are remembered. The forgotten are found.

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This story is based on documented historical accounts. Over 11,000 American women served in Vietnam . More than 265,000 served around the world during the Vietnam era . Only eight women's names appear on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall . The Vietnam Women's Memorial was dedicated on November 11, 1993 .

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06/17/2026

Amazing story of courage

The German officer raised his pistol and pressed the barrel against the American soldier's forehead.

The prisoners standing nearby could barely breathe.

"Tell me which of your men are Jewish," the officer demanded. "Or I will shoot you right now."

The man staring down the gun was Master Sergeant Roddie Edmonds, a 25-year-old from Knoxville, Tennessee. He was cold, hungry, exhausted, and a prisoner of war deep inside N**i Germany.

But he did not flinch.

What happened next would save the lives of hundreds of fellow soldiers and become one of the most remarkable acts of courage from the final months of World War II.

It was January 1945, during one of the harshest winters of the war. Germany was collapsing under pressure from advancing Allied forces, but inside the prisoner-of-war camp known as Stalag IX-A, uncertainty ruled every day.

More than a thousand American prisoners were held behind barbed wire and guard towers. Edmonds was the senior non-commissioned officer among them, responsible for the welfare of 1,275 American soldiers.

One evening, a chilling order spread through the camp.

The German commandant, Major Siegmann, instructed that all Jewish American prisoners were to identify themselves during the next morning's roll call.

Everyone understood the danger.

By early 1945, stories of concentration camps and disappearances had filtered through Europe. The order was not a routine administrative request. It was a threat.

That night, fear filled the barracks.

Some Jewish soldiers quietly discussed stepping forward. They worried that refusing might bring punishment upon everyone else. Others feared what would happen once they were separated from the group.

As the men wrestled with impossible choices, Edmonds made his decision.

He gathered the prisoners and issued a simple command.

"Tomorrow, we all fall out."

No lengthy speech. No dramatic promises.

Just an order.

When dawn arrived, the camp was covered in snow. The prisoners assembled outside in the bitter cold, waiting for the inevitable confrontation.

Major Siegmann stepped forward expecting to see a small number of men separate themselves from the formation.

Instead, he found every American prisoner standing together.

All 1,275 of them.

The German officer stared in disbelief.

"They cannot all be Jews!" he shouted.

Edmonds stepped out from the ranks.

Calmly, he looked at the commandant and replied, "We are all Jews here."

The words landed like a thunderclap.

Furious, Siegmann pulled out his pistol and jammed it against Edmonds' forehead.

The camp fell silent.

The prisoners stood motionless in the snow. No one knew whether they were about to witness a murder.

Edmonds never backed down.

He reminded the German officer that the Geneva Convention required prisoners to provide only their name, rank, and serial number. Nothing more.

Then he delivered a warning.

If the commandant shot him, every American soldier present would become a witness. When the war ended, those responsible would be prosecuted for war crimes.

For a long moment, neither man moved.

The pistol remained pressed against Edmonds' head.

The prisoners waited.

Then reality began to sink in.

Germany was losing the war. Allied armies were closing in from every direction. The certainty that had once fueled the N**i regime was fading fast.

Major Siegmann hesitated.

Finally, he lowered the weapon.

Without another word, he turned and walked away.

The crisis was over.

Because one man refused to surrender his fellow soldiers, an estimated 200 Jewish American prisoners were protected from being separated and potentially sent to a much darker fate.

Yet Edmonds never treated the event as something extraordinary.

After the war, he returned home to Tennessee, married, raised a family, and lived a quiet life. He rarely spoke about his experiences as a prisoner of war. Even his own children knew little about what had happened inside that camp.

When Edmonds died in 1985, the story seemed destined to fade into history.

Instead, it slowly emerged through the testimony of the men whose lives he had saved.

Survivors began sharing their memories. Historians investigated the incident. The details were confirmed, and the world finally learned what had taken place on that freezing morning in 1945.

In 2015, three decades after his death, Roddie Edmonds received one of the highest honors bestowed by Israel. He was recognized as Righteous Among the Nations, a title reserved for non-Jews who risked their lives to save Jews during the Holocaust.

He remains the only American soldier ever awarded that distinction.

The recognition was significant, but it was not what defined him.

What defined Roddie Edmonds was a moment when fear could have divided men, yet unity prevailed.

He understood something that tyrants have always feared.

It is far easier to isolate people than to confront them when they stand together.

On a frozen morning behind barbed wire, with a pistol pressed against his forehead, Edmonds chose solidarity over self-preservation.

Hundreds of men walked away alive because of it.

And decades later, his quiet act of courage continues to remind us that sometimes the most powerful words a person can speak are not about themselves at all.

They are about everyone standing beside them.

05/25/2026

Memorial Day is the one day the Country is asked to stop and remember the ultimate sacrifice made by those who gave their life to protect the freedoms Americans enjoy. My we always cherish their memory and say their name.

05/22/2026

Memorial Day is the only day out of 365 days our Fallen are Honored for the sacrifice they made. This is a very important day for our Gold Star Families and their loved one, who gave their lives in defense of our Country and they should be honored. Of course, we honor our Fallen and Veterans everyday but especially on Memorial Day for our Fallen and Veterans Day for our Fallen & Veterans.
Thank you to all Americans who take time out of their Memorial Day to honor our Fallen Heroes.

03/28/2026

Please post in comments any Vietnam Veterans you would like to honor and remember.

02/07/2026

Don't know if this is true or not but it is so very important not to make assumptions about people; especially our Veterans.

My neighbors called the police on my 70-year-old dad, claiming he kills dogs for profit. What we found in his truck left the officer in tears.

"Open the garage, Frank! We know what you're doing in there!"

Mrs. Higgins was screaming from the sidewalk, her phone raised, recording everything. Beside her, a patrol car sat with its lights flashing.

My dad, a man who survived the jungles of Vietnam but can barely survive on Social Security, didn't yell back. He just stood in the driveway, leaning on his cane, looking tired.

"Sir, we've had multiple reports," the young officer said, stepping forward. "Neighbors say you bring home shelter dogs, keep them for a few months, and then they vanish. They think you're flipping them for fighting rings."

I looked at my dad. I wanted to defend him, but a knot formed in my stomach.

Because Mrs. Higgins was right.

For three years, I’ve watched Dad bring home the "hopeless" cases. The scarred Pit Bulls, the three-legged Shepherds, the dogs scheduled for euthanasia. They live like kings for six months. Dad hand-feeds them, sleeps on the floor with them, whispers to them.

And then? Gone.

No collar. No pictures. Just an empty bowl and Dad driving his rusted pickup to the county shelter to get another one.

"I need to look in the truck, sir," the officer said.

Dad sighed, his hand shaking as he reached into his pocket. "It’s not what you think," he rumbled, his voice gravelly.

He unlocked the camper shell of his truck.

Inside wasn't a cage or a fighting ring. It was a bed. Lying on a thick memory foam mattress was "Buster," a massive Rottweiler mix Dad had picked up in January. Back then, Buster was aggressive and terrified of men.

Now, Buster was wearing a red vest. He sat up, calm and regal, waiting for a command.

"Get in," Dad said to me, ignoring the neighbors. "You too, Officer. If you want to write me a ticket, you can do it where we're going."

Against protocol, the officer followed us. I rode shotgun.

We didn't go to a dog fighting ring. We drove forty minutes to a rundown apartment complex near the VA hospital.

We pulled up to a ground-floor unit. A young man was waiting outside. He looked about 24, but his eyes looked 100. He was missing his right arm, and he was shaking, scanning the parking lot like it was a war zone.

Dad got out. He whistled.

Buster jumped from the truck. But he didn't run off. He trotted directly to the young man’s left side and sat, leaning his eighty-pound body against the boy’s trembling leg.

The effect was instant.

The young man stopped shaking. He dropped to his knees, burying his face in the dog’s neck. "Thank you," he sobbed. "I haven't slept in three days. Thank you."

Dad handed the boy a thick envelope. Not money. Medical records. ADA certification papers. Training logs.

The police officer stood behind us. He took off his hat. He wiped his eyes.

"You trained him?" I asked, my voice cracking. "Dad, you didn't sell them. You trained them."

Dad lit a cigarette, leaning against the truck. He looked older than I’d ever seen him.

"A fully trained PTSD service dog costs $25,000," Dad said quietly. "The government won't pay for it. The insurance won't touch it. These boys come home broken, and they're told to wait five years for help. They don't have five years. They don't have five days."

He nodded at the young veteran, who was finally smiling, walking Buster toward his front door.

"I can't give them money," Dad whispered. "I don't have any. But I have time. And I know what it's like to be afraid of the dark."

"But why the secret?" I asked. "Why let the neighbors call you a monster?"

"Because the work matters more than the reputation. It takes six months to turn a scared dog into a soldier’s lifeline. Basic obedience, task training, nightmare interruption."

"And it hurts," I realized, looking at his wet eyes. "Doesn't it? You fall in love with them."

Dad took a long drag of his cigarette. "Every single time, kid. I cry the whole way home. It rips my heart out."

He crushed the cigarette under his boot and looked me dead in the eye.

"But then I think about that boy sitting alone with a loaded gun on his table because he feels like nobody has his back. And I realize... my heart is old. It can handle breaking. Theirs can't."

The officer tore up the citation. He shook Dad’s hand and drove away.

We went back to the shelter an hour later. Dad walked past the cute puppies. He went straight to the back, to a cage marked "DANGEROUS - DO NOT ADOPT."

Inside was a shaking, snarling mutt that had been beaten by its previous owner.

Dad opened the gate. He sat on the cold concrete floor, ignoring the growls, and held out his hand.

"Hey there, soldier," he whispered softy. "You’ve got a big job ahead of you. Let's get to work."

My neighbors still think my dad is crazy. They don't see the network of veterans across the state who are finally sleeping through the night because of him.

True love isn't about what you keep. It’s about what you build, break yourself for, and give away to save a life.