Message Center

Tom Brokaw hosts AMC’s Memorial Day War Heroes Weekend, celebrating and remembering America’s bravest servicemen and women.

Interspersed throughout each film will be episodes from AMC’s original short documentary series, A Path to Honor. Created by Academy® Award-winning producer and director James Moll, the four documentary shorts depict seminal moments in the lives of those who serve our country in the Armed Forces from their enlistment process, deployment overseas and active duty in the field, to their emotional homecomings.

As host, Brokaw will introduce films including:

• AMC Celebrates the 45th Anniversary of The Dirty Dozen on Friday, May 25 at 8pm, and Midway at 11:30pm
• The AMC Premiere of Flags of Our Fathers on Saturday, May 26 at 8pm followed by Letters from Iwo Jima at 11pm
• The AMC Premiere of Hart’s War on Sunday, May 27 at 5pm
• Encore airings of Midway on Monday, May 28 at 5pm, and Flags of Our Fathers at 8pm

Additional films on Friday, May 25 include: A Bridge Too Far at 9am, Academy Award®-winning Patton at 1pm, The Green Berets at 5pm and The Great Raid at 2:30am. Other films airing Saturday, May 26 include: Battle of the Bulge at 7:15am, The Green Berets at 11am, Midway at 2pm, Heartbreak Ridge at 5pm and Patton at 2am. Films on Sunday, May 27 include: To Hell and Back at 10am and Apocalypse Now: Redux at 12:30pm. Monday, May 28 will feature encore presentations of Heartbreak Ridge at 11am and The Green Berets at 2pm.

Are you a Veteran? Looking for a job? Need benefits?

Veterans Register Now:
VAforVets.VA.gov/Detroit
More than a typical Hiring Fair: Onsite interviews with federal agencies and private sector employers Training in federal resume building and successful interview techniques Career coaching All experience levels and career types welcome.

Call 1-855-VA4Vets to start working with a coach today! This event is FREE for Veterans seeking jobs.

JUNE 26 – 28, 2012
10:00AM to 7:00PM
Detroit’s COBO Center
One Washington Boulevard
Detroit, MI 48226

More than a Typical Open House: This VA hosted event will showcase: Wide variety of innovative services provided to Veterans, including Federal benefits (both financial and health), state, local and faith-based organizations Onsite medical exams will be available for eligible Veterans Electronic access to benefits and medical record via eBenefits and MyHealtheVet Find out about Virtual Care (access to medical care through telephonic means) and other cutting edge services Get your questions answered…face to face. This event is FREE for attendees. Come see what YOUR VA has to offer!

Dr. Patricia Watson is the project manager of a military culture course that is being developed for the Department of Defense (DoD) and Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Integrated Mental Health Strategy. It is titled “Military Culture Training for Healthcare Professionals,” and is intended for providers both within VA and DoD and outside these systems, as not all providers have served in the military. This online training will help them become more familiar with military culture and values. The curriculum will be launched later this summer.

Dr. Watson is looking for veterans to volunteer to take part in filming for this course Tuesday, May 15 through Thursday, May 17.

Filming will be Center for Deployment Psychology, 11300 Rockville Pike, Suite 602, Rockville, MD 20852. The location is metro accessible. They plan to interview 8-10 veterans, and each interview requires one hour of time.

If you are a veteran and interested in participating, please contact Dr. Watson by phone at (808)756-7259 or by email at patricia.j.watson@dartmouth.edu.

The names of ten American servicemen will be engraved on the black granite walls of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial over the next week, and the status designations will be changed for 12 others whose names are already on The Wall, announced Jan C. Scruggs, Founder and President of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF).

VVMF is planning a press event at 10 a.m. on May 13 to unveil the changes and to honor one of the ten servicemen added: Frank A. Neary. His daughter Jessica DiNapoli will speak about her father’s life and service. Marine Corporal Neary was wounded in action on Feb. 24, 1967 in the Quang Ngai Province in Vietnam. His death in 2006 was deemed to be a result of the wounds received in combat.

Weather permitting, work to inscribe the names and change designations will be complete by May 4th, and the changes will be unveiled during the press event. When names are added, the highly technical procedure requires meticulous work to match the stroke and depth of the surrounding names to within 1/1,000 of an inch. The physical work of adding the names and changing designations will be performed by James Lee of the Colorado-based company, Engrave Write.

The ten names being added this year meet the Department of Defense (DOD) criteria for addition to The Wall: all of the men died in connection with combat related incidents during the Vietnam War.

Names Being Added to The Wall: Continue Reading »

Oklahoma is OK as far as MOAA is concerned! Check out the good work our chapters are doing in Lawton:

The MOAA auxiliary group in Oklahoma is working with the Armed Services YMCA to open a welcome center at the Lawton-Fort Sill Regional Airport. After much organizing and fundraising they are just about at their $70,000 goal, and an official opening ceremony is scheduled for next week.

The welcome center is a partnership between Armed Services YMCA and the Military Officers Association of America auxiliary and for one member of the MOAA it is a dream come true.

“For me, it means everything to see this come to fruition,” Rutti Cramer said.

Most of the time when you hear the words “dream come true” it’s about a personal achievement. The Military Welcome Center at the airport didn’t become a reality just because Rutti wanted it too, a lot of people have helped, but maybe this is personal, her husband Robert who has since passed, was a Vietnam War veteran.

Find a local MOAA chapter near you and get involved in your community!

Jane Watrel, a news reporter and military spouse with NBC4, covered the MOAA Military Career Fair, was a panelist on the military spouse networking panel during lunch. She advised attendees on knowing the value of effectively marketing oneself  as the key to finding the right job in this tough economy.

Career fair attendees learned how to do just that, met with military-friendly employers, received résumé critiques by MOAA transition specialists, and more!

Even for those not used to the new, online networking techniques, MOAA’s Director of Transition Services, Capt. Jim Carman, USN-Ret., had some good news, “We can educate job seekers on the fundamentals of self-promoting!”

For more information on this and other MOAA transition events visit moaa.org/careerfair.

Support the base near you by “demanding” Battleship the movie – the top ten bases with the most demands will get a free screening at a nearby theater!

*We might be biased, but Fort Belvoir is near MOAA Headquarters if you’re looking for a base to support.

NBC, Dick Wolf, and Mark Burnett are headed into battle with “Stars Earn Stripes”, a new one-hour non?-sripted series for the network. The project features nine teams, each comprised of one celebrity and one real?life hero from the top tiers of special operation forces. The teams will face off in grueling competitions as they fight to the finish in the name of their selected charity in a celebration of our Armed Services and national/local Law Enforcement.

The teams will compete in feats of strength, mental acuity, and combat technique that demand highly specialized skills and peak performance from mind and body. The challenges will be reminiscent of real?life combat scenarios and will include reconnaissance, search and destroy, threat evaluation and elimination, and other sophisticated enactments.

Each week the celebrities will be trained by their highly skilled teammate to prepare for their missions. Missions will include live fire and use various types of weaponry, from assault rifles to rocket launchers.

Celebrities will be earning the opportunity to raise money for veterans’ and law enforcement charities, including but not limited to Wounded Warriors and the Disabled Police and Sheriffs’ Foundation.

Metal Flowers Media is currently seeking men and women that are currently or have been Special Ops, Coast Guard, Green Berets, SWAT, Air Force, FBI, CIA, etc. to participate/train others in elite training challenges on the show. Please send referrals, or apply directly, to: casting@metalflowersmedia.com.

Thoughts? We’ve gotten interesting comments on military-themed reality shows in the past.

NASA’s oldest surviving shuttle, Discovery, is going to spend the rest of its days with The Smithsonian National Air and Space Museum’s annex in Virginia. On the final flight atop a modified Boeing 747 to Dulles airport in Virginia, it made its way over northern Virginia, and MOAA headquarters, where MOAA staffer Willow Nero was able to capture a few candid shots:

Photos by Willow Nero. Click on an image to enlarge.

NASA’s shuttle program, which came to a close in 2011, played a major role in a variety of DoD projects and relied on the military for critical mission support. Military Officer magazine covered the U.S. shuttle program in the January 2012 issue, in a feature titled “Out Of This World.”

The U.S. Army Military District of Washington Command Chaplain will host the Easter Sunrise Service in Arlington National Cemetery’s Memorial Amphitheater on April 8 at 6:30 a.m. The entrance for mobility impaired is at Old Post Chapel Gate, Joint Base Myer Henderson Hall, VA, located off of McNair Road. Parking will be on a first come-first serve basis. Transportation will begin at 5:15 a.m. from the Old Post Chapel Gate and from the Memorial Gate at Arlington National Cemetery at 5:15 a.m.

Parking is available in the Arlington National Cemetery visitor parking lot off of Memorial Drive from 5 a.m. to 9:30 a.m. Selfridge Gate at Joint Base Myer Henderson Hall (Selfridge is only a walking gate) and Memorial Gate at Arlington National Cemetery will open at 5 a.m.

This celebration of faith supports the Command Master Religious Program and provides spiritual support for our Service Members and families. For more information call (202) 685-2856