Photos Needed for Local Vietnam Veterans

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund wants a photo for every name on "The Wall" in D.C.

What if you could put a face to every name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial? The VVMF hopes you can. The National Call for Photos is a project organized by the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund to match a headshot or portrait photograph to every service member listed on The Wall. The pictures will be displayed in an exhibit at the future Education Center at The Wall, an underground visitors center to be built near the Vietnam Veterans and the Lincoln memorials. Everyday, the center will celebrate the birthdays of service members who died during the Vietnam War by featuring their photos on a giant digital wall. So far, 25,526 veterans have complete profiles with at least one photograph, according to George Pojani, a research associate at the …

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Child Hunger: Mom Talk

We claim to be the best country in the world, so why can't we feed our kids?

One in five American children does not know where their next meal is coming from. I first heard that statistic while waiting for Toby Keith to perform "Red Solo Cup" on the Country Music Awards Sunday. The show featured new artist Hunter Hayes and the band Little Big Town. They co-wrote a song "Here's Hope" that food conglomerate ConAgra adopted to raise awareness about the issue. Alarmed by the statistic, I went to their site, www.ChildHungerEndsHere.com. Sure enough, it says about 20 percent of kids in Will, DuPage and Kendall counties are considered food insecure. They don't know how long their food will last, and where their next food will come from. Statewide, that stat is up to 23.3 percent. Another alarming statistic was that many …

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Teri Karl

5:39 pm on Friday, April 6, 2012

Check out the documentary Thrive. It's very enlightening on this and other issues!   more ›

Woodridge Patch Honors Our Veterans

Honoring Woodridge's Veterans: Larry Gervais

Gervais, a member of VFW Post 1578, shares his Vietnam War experience with local students.

Larry Gervais was drafted into the Army in 1969 and sent to Vietnam.  He was in an infantry unit that was inserted into the jungle by helicopter for missions that lasted 18 days at a time. He started out as a point man, the first man in line looking for signs of the enemy. "It was very scary," Gervais said. "But the thing is being new you don't realize how dangerous a position that is. Of course, once you'd done it once or twice, you realize 'Hey I'm the first guy in line here. This isn't too cool.'"  He progressed to rifle squad leader, which he said was stressful too. "You're always worried about the guys that you're in charge of getting wounded or being killed," Gervais said. "Probably the thing that helped a lot of when we were there …

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Woodridge Patch Honors Our Veterans

Honoring Woodridge's Veterans: Don Young

Don Young, a member of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1578, served on swift boats in Vietnam.

Don Young joined the Navy in 1964 and volunteered to go to Vietnam in 1966. His crew opened a base in Quin Yon and was put on swift boats. "When I first got there," Young said. "Being that it was a new base, we saw a lot of stuff happening. And the first year there, we pretty much stopped a lot of the infiltration because that was our job (as a swift boat crew). We stopped infiltration of arms, food and actually payroll. That was our job to stop that." He spent almost 20 months there. "In my platoon, we never lost anybody in our crew," Young said. "I left our base on December 10, 1967,and they hit our base on the 13th. And there were quite a few guys who got killed on the base there." Young is a member of the Woodridge Veterans of Foreign…

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