Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Ned Powell, Expanding The Visibility & Mission of the USO During wartime, many politicians offer plaudits and platitudes attesting to the courage and sacrifice of the young men and women on the front lines of freedom. Too often, though, too many of this chorus of promoters fade from sight when the shooting ceases and the time comes to assist active-duty military and provide services
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Ray Kelly, NYC Police Commissioner The terrorist attack that collapsed the Twin Towers in Lower Manhattan seared the souls of Americans everywhere. For Ray Kelly, it was a defining moment.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Mitchell Paige, Exposing Medal of Honor Imposters When Mitchell Paige was six years old, his mother took him to an Armistice Day parade. (Armistice Day, for those too young to be familiar with the term, celebrated the eleventh hour of the eleventh
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Terry Allvord, Honoring Heroes at Home And Abroad With the first hints of baseball season in the air, U.S. Navy Lieutenant Commander Terry Allvord may be eagerly lacing up his spikes for his 14th season leading the charge for the Navy Baseball Program, but he's proudly got more on his plate: Promoting a patriotic foundation honoring search and rescue heroes at home and our troops in the Persian Gulf.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Bobby Hollingsworth, A Passionate Advocate for Members Of the Reserve and National Guard About as far back as he can remember, way back when he was a tow-headed two-year-old on his daddy’s farm in rural Louisiana, a passion to be a pilot fired the imagination of Bobby Hollingsworth. When an uncle came home in his Navy whites with wings, fresh from flying an F-6 Hellcat in the South Pacific, Bobby knew, he knew, what he wanted to be.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Crew of the Columbia Space Shuttle They were the best America has to offer, the astronauts who perished as their spaceship, the shuttle Columbia, disintegrated upon re-entry to earth’s atmosphere less than an hour before its scheduled landing. They represented a cross-section of America: two were wo
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Vince McGowan, Reviving NYC's Veteran Community The general sat, stone-faced, as the sergeant pointed to the briefing map and gave his standard 15-minute spiel about the successes of the Combined Action Program in the village of Binh Nghia.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Phillip Martin, Chief of the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indians Gone are the days when almost three-quarters of the people on the Mississippi Band of Choctaw Indian Reservation were unemployed and one-third of them had no formal education. And gone are the days when Choctaws were relegated to a livelihood of sharecropping, labor-type jobs, and welfare lines.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Marine Vet Chuck Meadows Makes Peace Clearing Unexploded Relics of War He is unremarkable in appearance. He could be a college professor or an accountant, a small-businessman, maybe. To borrow a cliché, though: Never, ever judge a book by its cover. Chuck Meadows is a career Marine, seared by combat, who now makes peace with those against whom he waged war.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Retired Army Lt. Gen. Claudia Kennedy Helps At-risk Children She was born in Frankfurt, Germany, the daughter of an Army officer, and grew up an Army brat. She graduated from Southwestern University at Memphis, in Tennessee, earning a bachelor of arts degree in philosophy. Believing that "to be an equal citizen, you need to bear equal responsibility, and when your country's at war, you do what you can to help," she joined the Army in June 1969. She was commissioned a second lieutenant through the Women's Army Corps.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Robert Glassman, A Banker Dedicated to Social Justice Robert Glassman is a banker, and this is the mission statement of the bank he serves as co-chairman: With a sense of inclusion and diversity that extends from the boardroom to the mailroom, Wainwright Bank & Trust Company resolves to be a leading socially responsible bank . . . equally committed to all its stakeholders - employees, customers, communities and shareholders.
Veterans Advantage Awards Jack Farley, Teaching Young People About War’s Lessons He had been working toward his master's degree in business administration at Columbia University when his draft board on Long Island tried to induct him. "They were good about it, though," Jack Farley said. "They let me finish school and I "volunteered.' It was what was known as an "encouraged enlistment.'"
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Jim Manley, Marine Corps Scholarship Foundation When he reflects on his life, Jim Manley is proud – of his family; of his prowess at football; of his service to Corps and country. His family is a constant. His abilities on the gridiron, when he starred for both St. John's High School in Pittston, Pennsylvania, and the University of Pennsylvania, is a fond memory. His service to the Corps, like family, is a lifelong proposition.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Bob Peragallo, Survivor of 'Lost Patrol' Finds Clarity, Healing with 'Vets With A Mission' Growing up in Sacramento, California, Bob Peragallo always knew he wanted to be a soldier. When he was 17, he began to fulfil that ambition. He was oblivious to the adage, Be careful what you wish for, for you may actually get it. His eighteenth birthday, in 1965, found him on a ship bound for Vietnam, a boy about to endure a 13-month baptism by fire on a tortuous path to becoming a man. His tour in Vietnam with the 1
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Ed McSorley, Vietnam Veteran "As a child of the 50s and 60s, military service was an obligation and a right of passage," Ed McSorley told some 250 students attending a post-Memorial Day workshop last year at New Canaan (Connecticut) High School. To the young men and women living privileged lives to whom the youthful middle-aged veteran bared his soul, service in the military was something beyond the realm of their experience. For
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Michael Naranjo, Vietnam Veteran and Sculptor He remembers, in exquisite detail, the last person he ever saw: the Viet Cong soldier who threw the grenade that took his sight, maimed his hand and threatened his dream of becoming an artist.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Paul W. Bucha, Army Brat He was an Army brat, a competitive swimmer, a graduate of both West Point and Stanford, an infantry captain. He arrived in Vietnam in November 1967 commanding D Company -- the “Clerks and Jerks,” they were called -- the last company formed when the 3rd Battalion, 3rd Brigade of the 101st Airborne Division adopted a four-rifle company configuration.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Tyrone T. Dancy, Serving His Fellow Veterans with Passion and Commitment “I feel there’s an obligation here,” says Tyrone T. Dancy, veterans’ employment program supervisor with the Pennsylvania Department of Labor. For almost a quarter of a century, he has been helping fellow veterans get the assistance they need – assistance they’ve earned – to steer them to productive lives. His motto could be “Service with a smile”; his goal is to “really help those who seek and need help.” And his satisfaction comes from those he’s assisted. “Because when you’re helpful and treat them with respect,” he says, “they really appreciate it.”
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Bob Macauley, AmeriCares One of the last flights out, an aging U.S. Air Force jet, was carrying a precious load: 243 Vietnamese orphans on their way to adoptive homes in America. Minutes after takeoff, the plane crashed outside Tan Son Nhut Airport, a searing tragedy that riveted the attention of the world. A third of the children were burned to death; many of the rest were severely burned and injured. Soon after, the Pentagon announced that it wouldn't have the resources to evacuate the surviving passengers for another 10 days.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet Bob McFarland 'Powerman' Brings IT Skills, Integrity To VA As Chief Information Officer When Bob McFarland retired from the Dell Computer Corporation in April, 2003, he and his wife were looking to slide into a life of ease. Bob was especially looking forward to doing some fly-fishing and snow skiing in Utah. "I think that that just about the best job a man can have," he said.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Clebe McClary, Overcoming the Odds to Inspire Others Patrick Cleburne, "Clebe" McClary, III was raised on a plantation in South Carolina. He grew up hunting, fishing, and excelling in sports. Clebe had it all. He won scholarships, set state records for athletic achievements, taught Sunday School in his home of Florence, South Carolina. He married the prettiest cheerleader in his high school.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Michael Plummer, Reaching Across the Miles To 'Adopt-a-Platoon' The hot spots where Americans have been deployed to douse post — Cold War fires may be exotic, but they also are far from home. Very far. For the soldiers and sailors, airmen and Marines who find themselves on the front lines in locales halfway across the globe, being away from their loved ones and removed from the routines of the lives they left behind are voids that are difficult to fill. Keeping in touch with family and fri
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet: Al Peck On Veterans Day in 1987, the City of New York opened a new, 400-bed shelter for the homeless in a converted belt and pocketbook factory in Queens. What made this facility different from others scattered across the five boroughs was its clientele: to be admitted to the Borden Avenue Veterans Residence, a man had to have served in the Armed Forces. This was a condition imposed by the community and agreed to by the city, which wanted to site a shelter in the solid, lower middle class community of Long Island City.
Veterans Advantage Awards HeroVet Father Phil Salois Priest with a Silver Star Ministers To Those Who Have Seen the Blood Father Phil Salois is a son of Woonsocket, Rhode Island. He graduated from high school in 1966, went to college in California. After a year, he dropped out and was building his career at an insurance company in Los Angeles when he was drafted to serve in Vietnam.
