35 cents
VOL. 4/ISSUE 42
Gold Star Families monument to be dedicated
THURSDAY, AUGUST 18, 2016
AVET helps Coast Guard celebrate Family Day, birthday The annual Port Canaveral Coast Guard Station Family Day, in concert with the U.S. Coast Guard’s 226th birthday, was celebrated Saturday, Aug. 6, at the station grounds. AVET Project helped out with volunteers, sponsors, food, supplies, kids’ free fishing poles and clinic, door prizes, photographers. stage and sound, and gave the Coast Guard a huge barbecue made by Suncoast Iron and AVET Project volunteers. Next month, AVET Project’s latest initiative for the Coast Guard station will be helping them with eight new bathrooms for the dorm rooms, with the help of a grant from Home Depot. For more information on AVET Project and their many campaigns, visit avetproject.org.
Mary Kemper STAFF WRITER
mkemper@veteranvoiceweekly.com
It will be a major tribute to mothers, fathers and all family members of those who made the ultimate sacrifice in service to their country when the Treasure Coast Gold Star Families Memorial monument is dedicated Sept. 26. The dedication coincides with the fact that Sept. 26 is Gold Star Families Day in the U.S. It all began with the United Veterans of St. Lucie County, who put together a committee from members of the Jack Ivy 666 Detachment of the Marine Corps League, and members of the Michael Bradley Chapter 566 of the Vietnam Veterans of America. The committee brought up the project with the Medal of Honor Foundation, chaired by Hershel “Woody” Williams, who is the last surviving Medal of Honor recipient from the Battle of Iwo Jima. Williams is a retired Marine Corps Chief Warrant Officer 4. Williams green-lighted the idea, and kicked it off with a $5,000 check for “seed money.” Fundraisers and generous private donations got the project rolling, and on Feb. 8, Williams was the keynote guest at the formal ground-breaking ceremony for the monument. Hundreds attended, includ-
See MONUMENT page 6
Photo by Roger Scruggs
71 years later, fewer than a million World War II veterans left Patrick McCallister FOR VETERAN VOICE
pmccallister@veteranvoiceweekly.com
On Sept. 2, 1945, a Japanese delegation walked onto the USS Missouri and signed the surrender that officially ended World War II. That’s 71 years. The youngest World War II veterans were born in 1927. Next year they’ll turn 90. Yes, there were a few youths who snuck into uniform lying about their ages. Space Coast Honor Flight reports it’s encountered some who were 15 when they signed up and shipped out. By some counts, Florida has the largest population of World War II veterans. “We have 79,000 World War II veterans,” Steve Murray, communications director at the Florida Department of Veteran Affairs said. How many World War II veterans are left? There’s no national registry of World
War II veterans, so it’s hard to tell how many are around. What’s certain is every day there are fewer. The Department of Veterans Affairs estimates that the population of World War II veteran dropped below a million sometime around 2014 to 2015. That was down from about two million the VA figured were alive in 2010 to 2011. Many still recite the famous number of 1,000 a day. That was the estimated death rate of World War II veterans around 2008 to 2012. The number has dropped to somewhere around 400 to 500 a day, because of population shrink. The VA figures there’ll be only a handful of World War II veterans by 2020. If the oldest lives as long as Frank Buckles — the last surviving American World War I serviceman — the nation will lose its last World War II veteran in about 21 years,
See MILLION page 5