Volunteers help out local veterans

Monday, March 29, is the 50th anniversary of the end of the Vietnam War. In 2017 President Trump made March 29 the National Vietnam War Veteran's Day.

Veteran Tobi Johansen of the local VFW Hall Post 2281 held a volunteer help day for our local veterans to commemorate the day. 

Johansen said, "It's based on one of the final battles in that war. It wasn't officially over until another couple of years later, 1975. But in 1971 was one of the bigger battles. To commemorate that we wanted to start helping our veterans, some of the older folks that could use a helping hand, with whatever, yard work.

He added, "We'd like to get to a point where we can fix up a wheelchair ramp, things along those lines. This post wants to do this a couple of times a year, two or three times in the summer and a couple of times in the winter when it starts snowing. This is just a start to help those people. A lot of our veterans do need that help. Their service is appreciated."

The response of the veterans has been positive. Johansen said, "I contacted the majority of our members who are over 80 years old. The majority of them said they'd like some help, but so far they are doing OK. Spring hasn't really sprung too hard yet. There's not much around the house that they need help with. But, they said they would get ahold of us here in the next month or so. So, I am going to get a running list of folks that need help and we can do this on an ongoing basis."

According to Johansen some of the challenges they have faced and been, "Just coordinating, people have been pretty busy, trying to get folks to be at different places. It gets a little difficult, but I've had a halfway decent response. Folks are interested in helping our veterans."

Johansen added, "Veterans are a proud lot and a lot of them don't want to ask for help. So, I am trying to be pretty proactive and make it acceptable. We have had people say that they do want it. But it just needs to be readily available for them."

Johansen served in the Navy on the USS Nassau in Albania and Africa.

He said, "My service was pretty easy. I was on board a ship and we had some tough times, but I was never staring down a barrel of a gun. A lot of these guys, they've had a lot harder times than I have. I just have nothing but the greatest respect for them and I want to do whatever I can to help them."