We had over a dozen members in attendance at our September meeting. Sick call included Elizabeth Truesdail making a nice recovery from a stroke, Mike Mazur scheduled for an operation relative to his skin cancer, and Woody Wilde recovering from pneumonia. Get well cards were signed and sent to all three.

More certificates of appreciation for Wall assistance were distributed for delivery. The Scholarship foundation of Santa Barbara as been reimbursed for the scholarship money that they were generous enough to cover while we struggled with the uncertainties of funding the Wall. Thank you letters were received from the two recipients of our $500 scholarships, Jason Long and Francesca West. We discussed hurricane Katrina relief and agreed to try to identify specific assistance recipients through local chapters.

Meeting adjourned and several of us had a post meeting get together meal at Moby Dick’s.

Our next meeting will be on Tuesday, October 11 at 6:15 P.M. . I won’t see you there - I have been deployed with the Red Cross on a Katrina Relief operation and won’t be back until the following day. I’ll try to check in by phone during the meeting.

Part Two: October 18, 2005

Call to ……legs!

There will be a parade on Veterans Day, Friday, November 11. The calendar of events for that day include a ceremony at the Santa Barbara Cemetery at 9:00 A. M. followed by coffee and donuts at the Veterans Memorial Building. At 11:00 A. M. there will be a program at the Memorial Building, followed by a free Barbecue sponsored by the local veterans groups.

Then the parade. We’ll form up at 1:00 P. M. on Cabrillo in front of the Memorial Building and will proceed to march up State Street to Sola. Stephanie is working on arranging transportation from the end of the parade back to the Building, but I’m sure we can figure that out in any event.
Cadence caller extraordinaire Dennis Hartman will be out of town, so we’re looking for a substitute and the edge would go to a caller in uniform. Let me know.

For Your Immediate Information

This coming Thursday, November 3, there will be a FREE health event at the Veterans Clinic (4440 Calle Real in Goleta). Dr. Robert Gaines has announced FREE blood pressure tests, flu shots and free food from 12:00 Noon to 2:00 P. M. Call Nick Gutierrez at 683-1491 x440 for further information and details.

Now, on with the news.

In my absence, First Vice-President Dennis Hartman chaired our monthly meeting and fifteen members were in attendance including members we haven’t seen in a while - Domingo Nunez (a grandson now added to his family), Chris Shemet, Stefanie (Salata) Davis, and Kate Lundy. Note was made that the section of State Highway Route 101 in the County of Ventura has been designated as Screaming Eagles Highway: 101st Airborne Division.

The Chapter will again this year be supporting Toys for Tots and a check to that organization for $250 was entrusted to Bill Frieburg. Support was requested to keep the "Healing from War" support group/class going and I am pleased to relay that Chapter supporters did indeed accomplish that objective.

There was a discussion regarding the type of functions at which it is appropriate to wear our Chapter t-shirt. I have requested clarification on this matter and will report back. Domingo reported the plight of a service man, a friend of his daughter, unable to get properly fitted for boots. He’s pursuing how we can solve that problem, exactly the kind of thing we want to be doing to prove that we mean it when we say "Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another."

Mark your calendars now so that you won’t miss our Annual Awards Banquet. For those in the know, this is THE Santa Barbara Social Event of the year. This year’s Banquet will be no exception. As usual the date will correspond with our December meeting date and time - Tuesday the 8th at 6:15 P. M. at Harry’s Plaza Café. The buffet set-up worked out fairly well last year, so we anticipate the same again this year.
Next meeting on Tuesday, November 8, at 6:15 P. M. at the Veterans Memorial Building. Hope to see you there.

* * *
P. S. Included herewith is a brief description of my mission with the Red Cross to Louisiana. I will try to have available for viewing at the Awards Banquet some distinctly amateur video highlights.
* * * * *
I flew into LAX last Thursday night (10/13)...after my two week stint with the Red Cross in Louisiana.

I flew into Shreveport on the 29th and drove to Baton Rouge, arriving at 2:30 in the morning Friday. Slept in my rental car till 6:00, then made half a dozen trips shuttling other Red Cross volunteers from the shelter to headquarters. Got my orders to go to Covington, La. the next day. Slept in a gymnasium on a cot that night with 100 or so others. a mix-up resulted in my being reassigned to Vinton, La. Arrived about 3:00 PM Saturday. The church where we were based didn't have power but did have a generator. The shower was a garden hose rigged up outside - which fortunately I never had occasion to use. By 3:30 I was off on an ERV and served 400 supper meals in a town called Starks, La

At the Sparks feeding, a lady came to the window and my colleague said "You want seven." She said "You remembered!" and broke down in tears. After she left (with more meals that we decided she could use), my colleague explained that he couldn’t help but remember because the day before she had broken down in tears, unable to ask for meals at all.

Another time a young lady asked for two meals "for her grandparents." We asked about her and she said that she’d get by. We said "Oh no." and gave her a meal too. People were often concerned that they were asking for too many meals and would explain that they were for a couple down the street, or for relatives staying with them, or some such. We made it clear that we asked no questions - just gave them whatever they asked for.

We weren't really needed in Vinton, so the next day two of us were shipped out to DeQuincy, La. where I spent the bulk of my time. I served meals out of a box truck that first night, then worked on to a serving line where the community came for hot meals. We served 500 to 1000 meals per serving, 20 or so Red Cross people and a similar number of Southern Baptist volunteers. Two weeks after the hurricane and there was still no power, many people hadn't even returned to their homes till well after we arrived. After a couple of days I got the assignment I wanted - to drive an ERV (emergency response vehicle) which is ambulance like, but designed for serving meals.

Two of us would load up our meals (for example, noodles and beef, string beans, chocolate pudding, {cooked by the Southern Baptist Convention who also sent in chain saw crews} bread, snack packs, water, ice), then drive to the town of Edgerly, La. where we parked outside the volunteer fire station. People came to us for meals for themselves and sometimes for others who couldn't get out for one reason or another. There we'd usually serve about 100 meals, then return to base, throw out our left over food, relax for an hour or so, and then load up for the same routine for the supper meal. At night after leaving the fire station we'd also drive through a little group of trailer homes lining a dead end road in a woods area.

Some highlights:
The first time we headed out to Edgerly, I got lost (incorrectly marked map) and drove five or ten miles on a dirt road through the woods. That night a guy at the trailer community said he had heard that we got lost and when I told him where we had gone he said "That's a bad road!" - and he wasn't talking about the condition of the road. He said "A lot of weird people live out there." There was no evidence of homes, just looked like a corporate tree farm. We later were told that it was a drug deal area and that there might be meth labs out in the woods.

One time we came back from our lunch run and there was a lady near the trash dumpsters. She asked if we had any left over food and we asked her how many meals she wanted. "Seven." "Any children?" "Yes, seven." "what about you?" "I thought I’d just eat what was left over by the kids." "No way!" We ended up giving her ten meals.

Once at the fire station the volunteer fire guys were cooking steaks on a small barbecue. They had only generator power. They told me they were cooking water buffalo. I heard "buffalo" (never imagining that they actually meant "water buffalo"), but when it was repeated the next day I inquired. "You mean like in Africa?" "Yes, a guy up the street goes exotic game hunting and brought these back from his last trip." The fire station guy proceeded to pull a cooked steak out of the refrigerator, cut a slice off, nuked it in the microwave, and handed it to me. It was pretty good and I got some preparation tips including that they marinate it for three days in Sprite.

One day between lunch and supper we made a quick trip to the Gulf 60 miles away to see if there were any communities there that needed assistance and to see some really badly damaged communities. One of our 'clients' (the Red Cross refers to the disaster victims as "clients".) offered to lead us to the communities. I rode in the car with him and Beth (my ERV partner) drove the ERV with the wife as passenger. The wife gave Beth a description of some of the locals including "Those people in …a nearby town … are bad. If they say they'll keell ya, they'll keell ya!") We saw an alligator in the canal next to the road on the way to the Gulf. We drove through miles and miles of swamp land - oops! wetlands - and my client said that when he was a kid when the ducks took off they would blacken the sky. He said now the Northern states attract the migrating ducks for their own hunters so they don't see nearly that many anymore.

We went through a check point - "look and leave" policy in effect for residents only - to a town called Holly Beach, La. Trailer and mobile type homes on a strip of beach right on the gulf. Go out your front door and walk to the Gulf. The community was gone. Gone. Nothing but rubble. No assistance needed there - no people. Salvation Army and National Guard were serving the inland community. On the way home I noticed the dried out carcass of a steer hung up (as in snagged) on a barbed wire fence.
My roommates numbered from as little as none (the first night when I slept in my car) to as many as 100 (the above referenced gymnasium on a cot). Spent most of my time with three other guys, all of whom it turned out were Vietnam vets. One night slept in a church room with two other guys - there was just enough room to put three cots next to each other plus about one foot between and a foot on the end. Another time slept in a church room about 10' x 15' with six of us, two females and four males.
On the ‘trailer’ street I sat in the kitchen of a small trailer while the husband, wife and 12 year old son told me what it was like to ride out the storm. Lasted for about 18 hours, often the trailer shook like a vehicle speeding down a bad road. A big tree fell on the bedroom part of the trailer. "That tree saved us." meaning it held the trailer down. They lived in a woods with lots of huge trees around them - ATV terrain. The wife said "Before the storm we had nothing but shade. Now we don't have a drop!" :-) The husband observed that they had all kinds of trails where they could drive the ATV's and now they couldn't drive anywhere. The son observed "Not even with a bulldozer!" which they also had.
One client decided that we were angels and gave my partner two angels from her personal collection. She then handed me a bag and said I know men don't like angels, so here are two angels for your wife.
We went to the DeQuincy honorary mayor's house where he served us a barbecue and treated us to a documentary he had made on the town of DeQuincy. A couple nights later we went back and he had arranged a little blue grass concert, performers including an 85 year old fiddler, a two fingered (chord hand) guitarist, and a sixteen year old girl. A couple nights later the community cooked us a meal and fed us at the local railroad museum.
A lot of the damage we saw in DeQuincy was probably tornado related. I served my last meal at Noon on Tuesday (10/11) and some of the people still didn't have power - nearly three weeks after the hurricane. Some thought we were pulling out too soon, but the mayor wanted us out because he didn't want the people to become dependent and he wanted money to start flowing back into the community. By then, restaurants and grocery stores were starting to open up again.
Thought you might be interested. At our orientation we were told that 98% of the people living in Louisiana were born in Louisiana and that 60% of them had never been out of the State. (October 18, 2005)

Proudly representing and serving noble warriors with noble intentions,

Keith

 

The Santa Barbara Chapter of the Vietnam Veterans of America is a tax exempt, non-profit organization. Our members are Vietnam era (you need not have served "in country") Veterans and Associates (individuals from all walks of life who may or may not have served in the military). Our Chapter is successful because of the efforts of Vietnam Veterans, Vietnam Era Veterans, and Associates, all of whom are equally welcomed and prized. The Chapter’s Vance Committee distributes funds to qualified disabled American veterans.

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October, 2005

 

SERVING VETERANS AND THE COMMUNITY SINCE 1983

 

For all those soldiers, sailors, airmen, coast guardsmen and marines, past, present and future, who have taken, are taking, or will take their turn on duty, recall a couple of lines from

A Few Good Men (1992):

"Why do you like them so much?" {Lt. Sam Weinberg (Kevin Pollak)}

" 'Cause they stand on a wall and they say: "Nothing's going to hurt you tonight, not on my watch."" {Lt. Cdr. JoAnne Galloway (Demi Moore)}

"Proud To Be
A Vietnam Veteran"

 

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