HeroVet

Tyrone T. Dancy at the Frederick Hart sculpture at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, D.C.

WeSalute 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.”

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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.

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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.

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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.

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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

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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.

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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.

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HeroVet: John S. Reed, Bringing Ethics Back to NYSE

Interim Chairman of the New York Stock Exchange John S. Reed reacts to a question during a press conference in New York, September 29, 2003. Reed, called from retirement to lead a reshaping of the world's largest bourse, said on Monday he has no immediate plans to ax NYSE board members. Reed, former co-chief executive of Citigroup In

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HeroVet: Andy Baumgartner, Ex-Marine and 'National Teacher of the Year'

There was a time not too long ago when a male kindergarten teacher would more often than not draw more than a few snickers. After all, teaching in the lower grades was very much the province of women.

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HeroVet: John C. Whitehead, Redeveloping Lower Manhattan

In the wake of the terrorist attack that felled the World Trade Center and several adjacent buildings, leaving a 16-acre hole in downtown Manhattan, New York Governor George Pataki zeroed in on John C. Whitehead, a former Deputy Secretary of State and onetime chairman of the investment firm Goldman Sachs, to run the Lower Manhattan Redevelopment Corporation.

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HeroVet: Bob DeAngelo

When he was a lad of five, Robert DeAngelo would walk across the railroad tracks from the crowded three-family apartment house his family shared with his grandparents and an uncle to spend some time at his home away from home: the Greenwich Boys Club.

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HeroVet: Dr. Frank Scarpa, Pro Bono Med Work for AmeriCares

For Frank Scarpa, bravado is a foreign emotion. Frank, who spent the better part of 1970 as a surgeon in Vietnam, never forgets to be thankful.

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HeroVet: Dan Stewart, Truck Driver Joins The New York Political Establishment

He was not the most conforming of children in Pawtucket and later in Cumberland, Rhode Island. If he hadn’t joined the Air Force in 1980, Dan Stewart - “Mayor Dan” to his constituents in the pleasant city of Plattsburgh in the northern reaches of New York State - might have led a life filled with regret.

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HeroVet: Gerry Byrne, Marine and Media Mogul

"The worst part about going to Vietnam was coming home," Gerry Byrne says. He is sitting in his unfinished tenth-floor office across the street from the United Nations in New York City, where he's nearing his one-year anniversary as partner, President and Chief Executive Officer of "Stagebill," the magazine of the performing arts.

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HeroVet Lt. Gen. Martin Steele (USMC, ret’d) Instilling Tradition, from the Corps to the Intrepid

In August 1966, he was a 19-year-old corporal, a college dropout who had enlisted in the Marines. Following a tour as a machine gunner as the nasty little conflict in Vietnam was escalating into a war, he had just returned to stateside service. Assigned to Quantico, where he would be Commanding General more than a quarter of a century later, Marty Steele met Karl Taylor.

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HeroVet Duery Felton, Jr., Curator of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection

Vietnam Veterans Memorial Collection curator Duery Felton Jr. often stands amid boxes that store items left at the Wall. Felton and his staff also oversee collections from over 40 other regional National Park Service sites, such as the Clara Barton House, Ford's Theatre and the Lee Mansion. Thirty-five years ago, he was one of McNamara’s 100,000, part of the big draft call of November 1966. He went from high school to Vietnam with minimal training in between – basic at Ft. Gordon; advanced infantry at Ft. Jackson – to meet the critical need for bodies as the American pre

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HeroVet: Major General Nels Running Shepherd of the Commemoration Of the Korean War

The first time Nels Running actually boarded an aircraft, the Frenchtown, Montana native was traveling from Missoula to Colorado Springs to enter the Air Force Academy. Although piloting a sleek jet fighter had never been a boyhood ambition, "I got hooked the first chance I had at the controls," he said. This was in 1960.

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HeroVet: Dr. Skip Burkle, Vietnam Veteran, Physician, and Humanitarian

He was 28 years old, the Senior Resident in Pediatrics at Yale. He was married with three very young children. Life was hectic. Life was good. Then he was drafted.

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