Stephen Bowers, a longtime VVA member who was the president of the Florida Seminole Veterans Foundation and the chair of the Veteran Affairs Committee for United South and Eastern Tribes, died on June 1 at age 71 of sepsis. At his death, he was the president of VVA’s Fort Lauderdale Chapter 23 and had previously served as the chapter’s vice president and secretary.

A Seminole Tribe member who served with the 173rd Airborne Brigade in Vietnam in 1969-70, he served on VVA’s Minority Affairs and Agent Orange/Dioxin Committees. As the founder of the American Indian Veterans Memorial Initiative, in 2013 Stephen Bowers was instrumental in persuading the VVA Board of Directors to support the creation of the American Indian Veterans Memorial, which will soon be dedicated on the grounds of the Smithsonian’s National Museum of the American Indian on the Mall in Washington, D.C.

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“Stephen was a dedicated Seminole Warrior, a father, a husband, and a friend of the veterans of all eras,” Marc McCabe, VVA’s National Service Officer to the Seminole Tribe of Florida, said at Bowers’ funeral, “but mostly Stephen was my friend for the past eleven years. It is with great sadness that we are here today to pay our respects to a strong Seminole warrior and veteran.”