Veteran’s Corner

Jason Hicks | Commander United Patriotic bodies
Fargo Memorial Honor Guard

As we celebrate the holiday season, I often reflect to times spent away from home, both state side and overseas. The Army (the branch I served in) always made an effort to bring a little bit of home to the mess hall. These days it’s called the DFAC aka dining facility. The holiday feasts were always exceptional. While not served in our traditional family style, we were still a family.
Throughout history the US Military has gone to great lengths taking care of its soldiers during the holidays. Can you imagine having steak and lobster at a US Army mess hall? How about a turkey dinner with all the trimmings served in a mess kit? I always appreciated the extra effort put forward.
Here we go into the winter season at the Fargo National cemetery; it is time for our winter uniforms to come out. Heavy parkas and long sleeved shirts. Something new this year, we purchased heated vests and gloves for our members. As you can imagine with the wind and freezing temps it can get extremely cold while standing outside, waiting to fire our three round volley and playing of Taps. So in an effort to provide a certain level of comfort for our volunteers we are trying this. Our average age of our group is 68 years old. That being said we have had more people join us, however we are always accepting volunteers. The service we provide cannot be measured in dollars as it is priceless. If you are an honorably discharged Veteran and belong to a service organization please consider joining the Fargo Memorial Honor Guard. We will supply a uniform and training, plus the opportunity to give back to the country we all love.
Update on the building project at the Fargo National Cemetery. We are in the middle of a letter mailing campaign for donations. We are also revamping our marketing strategy to expand our reach in the community. I would like people to know we are very much a grass roots organization created out of necessity to provide proper military burial services at our “Arlington” national cemetery of ND. (This covers all of ND, parts of Northwestern MN and also SD). Through a series of negotiations we now have permission to build a facility on the grounds of the Fargo national cemetery. As we speak the National Cemetery association is reviewing our submitted plans for the building. Hopefully we will hear something soon. I was told that “after the election” things would pick up for pace. While I have zero idea what that would have to do with our project that is what was told to me. But now we should have some movement.