The best definition of a veteran, I’m aware of, is as follows: “A veteran is someone who, at one point in their life, wrote a blank check made payable to ‘The United States of America,’ for an amount of ‘up to and including their life.’”

I’m afraid far too few people in our country fully understand the commitment necessary to preserve freedom and our way of life.

However, there are those still willing to lay down their life for our country and the ideals and principles we hold so dear.

As members of our nation’s armed forces, veterans lived by the warrior ethos. The Army’s version states: I will always place the mission first. I will never accept defeat. I will never quit. I will never leave a fallen comrade.

George Washington once said that “a nation is judged by how well it treats its veterans.” Therefore, we pay tribute to our veterans hopefully every day, but especially on Veterans Day each year.

It is a day set aside specifically for that purpose and pays tribute to the living as well as the dead. Annually, we muster a list of veterans who died from Veterans Day last year until this Veterans Day.

The purpose of this roll call is to pay respects to our departed veterans for their service, and assure their families they are not forgotten.
They too at one point in their lives wrote that blank check and offered themselves to our country’s defense.

June 2016
Dale Curry – 6/09/2016 – USAF (From 2016)

November 2016
Robert D. Sammons – 11/7/2016 – N/A
Alford P. Cobb – 11/14/2016 – N/A
Paul JC Robitaille – 11/18/2016 – USAF
Bobby H. Willis – 11/28/2016 – N/A
Jerry Hill – 11/28/2016 – Army
Dawson L. Burton – 11/30/2016 – Army

December 2016
Randy Campbell – 12/15/2016 – Navy
Perry Owens – 12/16/2016 – Army
Harvey G. Holley, Jr. – 12/19/2016 – Army
Bill Travis – 12/21/2016 – USAF
Wallace E. Skinner – 12/22/2016 – Navy
Eugene Girlie – 12/23/2016 – Army
John Ackerman – 12/27/2016 – USAF
Marilyn R. Edwards – 12/28/2016 – USCG
David B. Corey – 12/28/2016 – Army

January 2017
Will Langston – 01/05/2017 – Navy
Edward J. Dagostin III – 01/20/2017 – Navy

February 2017
Billy R. Manning Sr. – 02/01/2017 – USAF
Marion C. Colburn – 02/05/2017 – Army
Willie Allen Rasmussen – 02/06/2017 – Army
Greg Ford – 02/22/2017 – Navy
William P. Sellier – 02/28/2017 – Army

March 2017
Dr. James F. Alison – 03/25/2017 – USAF
Henry H. Bolen – 03/31/2017 – NG

April 2017
Paul Woodard, Sr. – 04/02/2017 – Army & USAF
Michael D. Dillane – 04/05/2017 – USAF
Floyd P. Bowman, Jr. – 04/06/2017 – Army
Charles A. Golson Sr. – 04/07/2017 – Navy
Allen W. Cale – 04/10/2017 – N/A
Walter O. Green Sr. – 04/15/2017 – USAF
Luther C. Crane – 04/20/2017 – Navy

May 2017
Robert A. Burt – 05/07/2017 – USMC
Bob J. Canada – 05/19/2017 – USAF
Charles Snodgrass – 05/20/2017 – USAF
Donald Shumate – 05/21/2017 – Army
Charles T. Cammack – 05/26/2017 – Navy
Jessie Pardue – 05/27/2017 – Army
Rudolph M. Lempicki – 05/28/2017 – N/A

June 2017
Dr. Donald Overstreet – 06/01/2017 – Navy
Raymond M. Maske – 06/04/2017 – USAF
Rayburn Hill – 06/07/2017 – Army
Alan Pitts – 06/15/2017 – USAF
William T. Faile – 06/17/2017 – N/A
Thomas L. Brown – 06/19/2017 – Navy
Jerry Victor – 06/22/2017 – USAF
Charles M. Butler – 06/26/2017 – N/A
Roy Crum – 06/26/2017 – N/A – Army
Rubin F. Suther – 06/27/2017 – N/A

July 2017
Randolph Watters – 07/08/2017 – NG
Carl R. Mott, Sr. – 07/11/2017 – NG
Jesse W. Englett, Jr. – 07/25/2017 – Army

August 2017
Bernie Groves – 08/06/2017 – ANG
William Lightfoot – 08/18/2017 -Army
Jacob Caver – 08/20/2017 – USAF
James B. Little III – 08/31/2017 – Army

September 2017
Louis G. Troha – 09/05/2017 – Army
Robert Myers – 09/14/2017 – Army
Ulysses D. Chappelle – 09/14/2017 – Navy
James Suttle III – 09/17/2017 – N/A
Harvey S. Lauderback, Sr. – 09/18/2017 – N/A
David H. Laird – 09/26/2017 – Army
Julius E. Mitchell – 09/27/2017 – USAF
William F. Portwood – 09/30/2017 – Navy

October 2017
Dean Larson – 10/09/2017 – USAF
Jimmy C. Miller – 10/11/2017 – Army
Elisha Rinehart, Jr. – 10/12/2017 – Army

November 2017
Robert M. Price – 11/02/2017 – USAF

Rest in peace. These men and women have completed their mission here on earth and have passed the torch of freedom onto us who remain. Our compliments on a job well done and with their departure vow to close ranks, execute a dress right dress and continue to honor our pledge to support and defend the Constitution of the United States against all enemies, foreign and domestic. This list comprises all we have knowledge of and do apologize for any missed.