D-Day 75th Anniversary

Veterans Talk

Well, Congress is at it again and the veterans’ organizations are urging the law makers to end the disgraceful Widow’s Tax. More than 65,000 surviving military spouses and dependents are unjustly penalized because their loved ones made the ultimate sacrifice for our country. Contact your Congress person to #AxeWidowsTax. On top of that they need to fix Senate Bill S.1370 and House bill H.R. 1994 which include a “fix for the Kiddie Tax.” This is a consequence of the Tax Cuts and Jobs Act of 2017, which doubled the taxes for military surviving children who receive their parent’s retirement pay.

The Veterans Affairs announced that service-connected disabled veterans are now eligible to receive free lifetime access passes to more than 400 National Parks and 2,000 recreational sites around the country. The pass admits disabled veterans and any passengers in their noncommercial vehicle at per-vehicle fee areas or admits the disabled veteran plus three additional adults where per person fees are charged.

The Veterans Choice Program is scheduled to be replaced by a new Veteran Community Care Program, which was created by the VA MISSION Act. Aimed at adopting lessons learned from the Choice Program and consolidating all community care (or non-VA care) programs, the new program will have new criteria for accessing private-sector health care. It is intended to expand access to care for veterans, including urgent and walk-in care.

Locally, there will be a 75th Anniversary, D-Day, wreath laying ceremony at the monument located on East Washington Avenue. The ceremony will take place June 6, at 3:30 p.m. and will be conducted by Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 4006, its’ Auxiliary and the local chapter of the Daughters of the American Revolution. The wreath will remain there through the weekend. Due to traffic, there will be police on hand to assist crossing the street safely. Please come by and join us as we pay our respects to those who made the ultimate sacrifice for our freedom.

On June 14, which is Flag Day, there will be a flag retirement ceremony in Reflections Park located behind the VFW Post Home. This ceremony will take place at 6:30 p.m. and will be followed by a dance inside the main hall of the VFW with music by the Koka Kola Cowboyz country band. There will be a minimal cover charge of $5.00 for the dance which will be from 7:30 p.m. until 11:30. p.m. Once again, we invite one and all to join us and witness the proper way to retire a flag. Hopefully a veteran or family member has gotten some helpful information from my columns.

I wish to thank all who have served our country and we ask that God bless Texas and the USA!

Carl Dry is a Korean War veteran, a former Grimes County Veterans Service Officer and the current VFW Post 4006 Commander.