Region 4 Report

BY BOB BARRY, DIRECTOR

The beautiful Gulf Coast is home to Region 4: Alabama, Mississippi, Florida, and Georgia. Georgia shares the blue water of the Atlantic with Puerto Rico to complete our region. I believe this part of our country is the future of Vietnam Veterans of America. Florida is the fastest growing membership state in VVA. Every state in the region added new chapters in 2012. It’s not just the beaches and the warmer climate that attract our mobile membership. The VA facilities, the plethora of military bases, and state tax breaks for retirees are also attractions.

I am honored to work with the Region 4 state council presidents and treasurers, who surely have the most thankless jobs.

Wayne Reynolds is the longtime president of the Alabama State Council, as well as VVA’s national treasurer. Jim Sasnett is the state council treasurer and is to be commended for his patient, hard work to salvage Incarcerated Holman Chapter 190’s charter.

Rex Moody has been the state council president for Mississippi longer than he cares to remember. He has been working on Tupelo’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial, a two-thirds replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington. Bob Berell is the secretary/treasurer for Mississippi.

Georgia has the most fluid council presidency within the region. Spence Davis is the fourth president in as many terms. He has brought energy and the gentle, old Southern style of leadership, adding a new chapter in his first year and reinstating another. The Peach State treasurer is Howard May.

The Sunshine State’s membership has grown by the hundreds. Ben Humphries has made the state presidency a full-time job. His tireless energy has added growth to new and old chapters across the state. The 2013 VVA Convention will be held in Jacksonville, Florida, and the two local chapters are excited about being the hosts. Add to that the fact that Chapters 1036 and 1038 have both been nominated for National Chapter of the Year. Tom Hall is the Florida State Council treasurer and has been a leader in the statewide Agent Orange Town Hall meetings program. The future is very bright in the Sunshine State.

The news from Puerto Rico is all positive. Thanks to the dedicated work of Marc McCabe, chief VVA field service officer at the St. Petersburg, Florida, VA, the horrendous backlog of claims in the San Juan Regional VA Office has been broken. A very special thanks to the pro bono work of the attorneys from Bergmann and Moore who joined with McCabe to clear more than fifty backlogged cases in one visit to San Juan.

My special salute goes to Marc McCabe and his office staff at the St. Petersburg VARO. From May 2011 to December 2012 this VVA team has recovered compensation for our brothers and sisters to the tune of $34,200,734. Read that number again, folks: It’s impressive.

The VVA membership has entered 2013 with just about everyone in their sixties and seventies—some even older. I pray we are making realistic plans for the inevitable future. Denial would be a tragic choice for planning the future of this beautiful organization.

I am honored to serve as Region 4 director. The experience of visiting so many hard-working Vietnam veterans from every walk of life in chapters across the region has been a most exhilarating, sometimes tearful (attending memorial services, cleaning The Wall) adventure of my life. I don’t know the words to completely express my pride, admiration, and love for the veterans of Vietnam.