Military and Veterans Affairs Commission Meeting Recording 2026-01-05

And there's plenty to do with— there's in springtime, there will be some— we got some, I guess, I'm not sure if you call it flower bed, but we got some plants that could use some attention. And like you said, Dave, exactly right about the base of the wall with the names. Just as a— if I can— I just happened to think of an event to happen. I think you guys would appreciate it. I got an email from someone from the lower 48.

He says, hey, my brother just passed away. And, um, or I was trying to remember, it was— they were trying to do a family background check, and they said that their brother had been killed in action, uh, during, uh, that, that same time period. And he said he thought they were having like a family, a big family reunion, and he thought that there was a his name was put on the memorial. He said it's a long shot, but is that— is there a memorial out there? We know nothing about it.

We've never been to Alaska. So, um, he sent me his name. I went out there and took a picture of the, uh, kind of zoomed in. I took a picture of the whole area, the flag and the, and the, the monument, and then the wall. And I kind of zoomed in.

I found his, his brother's name on it and took a picture of it, zoomed in on that and sent it to him. And, and you would have thought he won the lottery, or I, I gave him a, you know, some kind of huge gift. They were extremely appreciative of it, and it was awful nice to be able to do that with flags on it. And some of the, the clean— it was cleaned up and looked respectful so that I wasn't embarrassed to share that photo with a family member who gave, sacrificed their brother to the cause. So it's important that we take care of that area, in my opinion, plus so that the next generation understands that it's important to honor and memorialize our veterans who gave the ultimate price.

Awesome. Earl, Do you think that person would mind if we put on our shared drive the pictures you have? Um, I, I don't know. I don't think—. I don't—.

I doubt seriously they would mind. They were, you know, they were very proud of them. Um, I will, uh, might take me a little bit. I get a few emails, uh, and send out a few emails, so I will have a look, and if I can, um locate it. I'm sure I will.

I will forward it on to you guys and let you reach out to them. Yeah, send it to Dave and Dave will take care of it, I'm sure. And I got a follow-up question. Yes. I'm still not really clear as far as the stewardship of the memorial because it's on MOA property, and the Officers' Service Club is kind of out right now.

So legally, who's responsible for the future maintenance of it? You know, cut the ball part, whatever.

Uh, how do we figure that out? Well, we don't. Yeah, is there a way to, you know—. We don't. That's where our recommendation to the mayor comes in.

Now, right now, like, like Earl said, right now it is on Merrill Field. So right now, until they decided it's on Merrill Field, so whatever is done with it, he's overwatching and looking it over. Uh, but our recommendation to the mayor was that the mayor has a meeting with the key players in the municipality to include, like, Earl Parks and Rec, and whoever the mayor feels needs to be there, where they can sit down and decide, uh, way going forward, what is going to be the plan for the 11th Air Force. You know, we're, we're, have done grants and requests to hopefully get a, a small bucket of money sitting there to start out that can be used to help start the repairs, like filling, like repairing the cracks to where they're repaired properly and filled in, and that, uh, things like that to get it back to where it's at. The way forward is mainly going to be for, like you say, the upkeep and maintaining it so it doesn't get in that, that the level of, uh, uh, disrepair that it was in there for a while.

And, uh, so should we still— should I still keep trying to figure a way to get grants from different organizations? Or, you know, because if so, I need input, people who— yeah, and I can do the letter up and give it to the, uh, to the mayor's office. To send out for the grant request, but I, I'm kind of out of— oh yeah, which reminds me, uh, brass music, brass music, brass music. Yeah, did you have a meeting? You put in a talk with the staff and figure that out as far as whether— because I had asked, uh, if we could, uh, I'd start working with the, uh, brass musician, uh, people getting a grant, and then Laura said, well, let me check on with the staff.

Um, I need to follow up. I haven't heard back from my initial ask on that. Um, so I will put on my list to follow up. There might be a possible conflict there, so we— Laura wanted to make sure there's no conflict as far as if we go ahead and request. Uh, talking to them, there is a way for government entities, uh, even because we're not a nonprofit, to get funding if they have an application form, but want to make sure there's no conflict of interest between the MOA.

Yeah, so if there's anybody else that has anybody that might have anybody, have them contact me, and then, uh, I'll work with them to get the paperwork done. Clear with me right now, we have the 40— 44,000— 4,400 from the post, and we have— we don't know how much, hopefully $10,000 or more from the state. That's only two that we have kind of really rolling right now. Need more input? I'll help you with that.

Great. I have lots of sources. I just haven't called them because we needed to know where— what, what we needed at the time. Yeah, yeah, just have him give me a call. Oh, I'll give it to you.

I'll give you the application. Yeah, um, now Alexander, do you have any questions on all this? I don't know what I don't know. I'm not sure how much Bob has shared with you, I don't know how much you've known, uh, do you know the history of the 11th Air Force Memorial? Not enough.

Have you been there? I have not yet, but I know it's there. I know you guys did the event on Veterans Day, so my plan is to get out there and brief it through our organization that we would like to do that upkeep, be associated with it. And if you need donations from not only our organization, but we can do the legwork going to community, if that's a thing. Yeah, that's a thing.

It's just, it's just that we got to be careful because we're a commission of the municipality. We have to be care— real careful how we— because like, we don't even— we, we fill out the paperwork for it, but then we give it to the Laurel and Sheet, then it gets put out through the, the proper channels to get to request grants for. And we're just doing— I said we're doing that now. A quick—. I'll try to do this real quick.

20, 21 Years ago, the United States Air Force Association, or the Sergeants Association, in conjunction with the 11th Air Force Association, the original one out of Colorado, that's no longer there. They, because there were some members that were of the Sergeant's Association back in those days, remember about, they wanted to put a memorial up here to memorialize the 11th Air Force, and then it got added into it the Americans Home from Siberia monument. They put it on Merrill Field because that was the original office, that was the original headquarters of the 11th Air Force, which was in a wood shack on the backside of Merrill Field. It's not— the memorial is not on the actual site, it's back where there's some place that, uh, to fit it, but they got the land, they got the lease agreement, use agreement to to use it. The people that were here, they were able to work out a lot of people who donated time or donated money or donated labor to get the thing built and get it done.

And it was done with the thing that the actual, the original, back then the Sergeant's Association was going to maintain upkeep the flowers, the mowing, the this, that, and that's the way it went. And then it was forgotten. It was, it came up back under, it came under our radar because the previous mayor was asked how come the flags aren't flying on the 11th Air Force Memorial. And so I was called in to find out because I would like the commission to find out what's going on with this. And that's when we started looking into it and found out that it was pretty bad shape.

The lights weren't working anymore, mainly because the electric circuit, the whole complete electric of the Merrill Field had been changed out and they didn't— wouldn't work with the stuff that was in there. So the lights weren't working. So the previous director of Merrill Field, They took the flags down because they couldn't be lit at night when it was dark. And so it also had some problems because of the earthquake. That whole area is built on top of the old Anchorage dump.

And when the earthquake hit, the ground and parts of it have dropped a foot to 2 feet. That's why there's so much of the flag— the base of the flagpoles had dropped in that. So that's right. So now we're seeing some cracks in the walls, but they're not going anywhere. As Earl can tell you, there's enough concrete and there's enough support underneath the ground to hold those up.

It would take a major, major undertaking to peel up to any of this. But they are cracked. They are cracked. There are some pieces that need us, and that's what we're doing now. Earl— when Earl took over, he started having his guys go over and do a lot of repairing and fixing and making it look better over there, and he's been doing that consistently.

And, uh, they've got the lights working, and that— so they've been doing some good stuff. So, and that's where we're at now. Now it's just, let's just get it back on the radar, keep it on the radar, and how we're going to go forward. When I got here 10 years ago, I was the president of the chapter, and I hadn't heard anything about it until Bob mentioned it to me. Yeah, most people don't, right, know it exists here.

Uh, and we actually, between the, the 3, 4, 5 of us, you know, uh, we have actually talked about it to everybody that we knew. I got a chance to talk to Dan, the Senator Sullivan, yeah, I got a chance to talk to him when we were on Post 1 and told him, and he didn't even know it existed. So yeah, like, we've been here for— I've been here 45 years on Wilson until they mentioned it a few months ago. We didn't know. Mentioned to Colonel Babbitt, and she went off the bus I've heard about it, but we're putting signs up next time.

Yes, the Missisippian Valley is going to put signs up with directions to it. And they're all signed at the— Earl's going to put them up at the actual memorial for the traffic on that particular road right now. So we're doing things, and we have a committee. There's the chair, Helen, and Olivia and I. If you want anybody, with your permission, any of us come out and speak to anybody for you to kind of talk about it, Please let us know.

Eleanor, would you mind if I be liaison for that? What's wrong with me? I mean, you know, I've got a bunch of pictures. Yes, that's what I'm saying. You got all this stuff.

Yeah, I'd love to come. Yes, as long as we have one, is what I'm saying. Yeah, we have a stove. Okay, anyway, she's the— I gave all my stuff to her. So that's the basic rundown of it.

Yes. And people here you can get information with, you can always get information about any of these people. And Earl is the main person to talk to about anything that you guys want to do with it or get involved with it. And that—. If we can get a press—.

Excuse me, I'm sorry. Yeah, we can get a press, a short, maybe even just a one-pager, and then we can— so the adjutant for our post is also the state adjutant. American Legion. So that kind of information, it goes straight out to all the posts, and that's just American Legion posts, not the VFW. Oh, that's right, they're all separate.

Obviously they're all separate. Jason, do you— I think I sent it to you. Do you have— or I can resend it to you. I'll send it to Jason. Yeah, okay.

Talks about as our sergeant Russia and the, uh, how we people can turn in and talk about that. He's got a really good one. What's the requirement to become a member of the Sergeant Association? Either family member, or you can be an associate member if you just are interested in supporting the military. Could you, uh, I'll give you information after.

Could you give me information for it? Yep. I think what he's asking is, is it include military and veterans? Yes. Of the Air Force?

Yep. Yeah, you don't have to be deployed anywhere, but if you were In the military, you are an actual member, and then your vote counts with the Military Coalition Capitol Hill, which is our— yes, right. Yeah. So everybody in here could be any service as well. All right.

Upcoming events. I only had one. I didn't have a chance to go out and look. I know, Bob, if you have any other events coming up this month, you can let me know, but I do. Okay, on the 8th, January 8th, so today's the 5th, that's 3 days, this Thursday is the Boards and Commission Member Association and Info Presentation, 5:30 to 6:30 PM.

And that's, well, that's here in this building, but is it in 850? It's in 830. 830, It's in 830. That's in a normal conference room, we'll know, right? So any of you, Any of you commission members want to come up there for that?

This little appreciation, little, uh, I think they said the first half hour is kind of a social advising time, and then the second, the second half of it, 6 to 6:30, is a presentation. Yes, they'll be covering updates to the code regarding commissions. Yeah, and that's all, all the different commissions within the MOA, right? Yes.

All right, what do you got, Bob, for us?

I got on 3 February at 2 PM at the Alaska Veterans Museum will be this Four Chaplains ceremony of the four chaplains from the Dorchester during World War II, where 672 died out of 900 as they were sank by a German U-boat. And the 4 chaplains were the ones who basically kept everybody positive, gave away their own life jackets, gave away their gloves.

And we're going to do a ceremony on that at the Veterans Museum on the 3rd of February, which was the date that it actually sank.

You were talking about that, Bob. You said that was at 2 PM. 2 PM, yeah, it'll probably go 2 PM to 3 PM. I've got local chaplains who match the Methodist minister, the Catholic priest, the Dutch Reform minister, and a rabbi. So we're going to have representatives do that to And I said, I've got my Catholic guy is just kind of going head over heels on that, saying this is great.

And so we're getting the community involved and on a really a military type of ceremony. But yeah, something that we're trying to do to open it up, the museum, more to everybody. So that's all that I have at the moment. Yeah, it's kind of a slow, slow month that January is. Yep.

Well, we'll have— Ferrandi will be coming up. That it will.

Over and over again. Anybody else have anything that's coming up this month?

Alright, anybody got anything for the good of the Commission? Hi Dale, hi, it's Kyle. Yeah, go ahead. Hi, we don't have too much going on this month. We are back to, everyone's pretty much back starting this week from all their block leave and holiday leave.

The only thing that we're looking forward to is next month, that first Saturday, we are partnering with the Anchorage Chamber and they are hosting hosting their annual bowl-a-thon here on base at the Polar Bowl. If anyone wants to come out and bowl or support and allow our military community to bowl for free, you can just visit their website. They host all of that through their website and it should be a good time. All right, that's the 7th of February, correct? Correct.

The mayor's office and staff will be attending that. I just haven't been able to purchase the tickets yet until they release our budget. Yeah, Kyle, if you could please, uh, just can you send that out to us when you have a chance? Yep, I will send it shortly. Okay, now we can share it with, uh, with our different networks and people that we Okay, sounds good.

Thank you very much. Thanks, David. And just as an FYI, I did find that email I had spoken about, the family member of someone that was on the memorial. I've sent that out to everybody for your, for your review. And then I know it's out there a little ways, but I think Memorial Day This for 2026 will be May 25th.

I know Olivia did a great job last minute pulling everything together for Veterans Day, but I can only imagine what she could do if she was given a few months to plan a Memorial Day out there. We've had a— I think, David, you're familiar with the veteran bikers that they would like to be involved in any type of Memorial Day event that we would have as well. That's all I have from Merrill Field other than thanking you guys again for all your support for the— for our military in general and the 11th Air Force Memorial particularly. Thank you. All right.

The only problem we got, Earl, is the municipality host Memorial Day ceremony on the park strip, and the people that pretty much put that together for the municipality is the Military Veterans Affairs Commission. Gotcha. All right, well, we'll probably— we're not going to be competing, but we do want to honor the folks and the families for this memorial as well. So we may have something, but I doubt we'll be able to compete with you folks. Um, the, uh, if you— now my suggestion would be to do something that is in the afternoon.

And then if you did it in the afternoon, uh, because we got ours is from 9:30 to 10:30 at the Park Strip. Gotcha. The Memorial Day on Jay Bear at the National Cemetery starts at noon and goes about an hour.

And so if you wanted to throw something together in the afternoon, that would be, you know, 1:30 or 2 o'clock, then you wouldn't be competing with anybody and you could just get to rotating as they're going through. The main thing is that it gets put out to everybody, people know about it. Sure, that's another great reason why we, why we have this meeting, so we can correlate and collaborate. So I appreciate that. Good, good points.

Thank you. Yeah, and because if we, if we, if you plan it out at a time like that, then I am sure some members of the Commission would not mind getting with you and working on that because it's a different time and Lord knows now I'm going to be a little busy. I will probably make it by if you have it like 2 o'clock, but by that time I'm going to be pretty much drained and dead because the two previous Memorial Day ceremonies I just mentioned, I'm involved in both of those.

But I will support. Understood. Understood. We'll see what we can do. But I appreciate the advice on that.

All right. Earl, last month, I don't think you were here last month, but we vote to move Memorial Veterans Day to a summer day when it's warmer. That sounds like an Air Force decision. Well, yes, it does. It was a joint decision.

How's that joke in? And the Air Force— and the Air Force guy says, how'd this tent get into my hotel room? You know, I work in air conditioning building and I wasn't embarrassed at all. All right, does anybody got anything else for the good of the Commission? So our IT just Teams me and said I should be able to record, so I did start recording part of the way through.

Yeah, I saw that. Check that off my list. How long before that typically would be posted? For? On the, on the YouTube.

I'm still working that piece. We've been having issues trying to download, or not me because this is my first time recording, but those that have recorded the meetings in the past are having some issues downloading the content. So I'll have to follow up with Marie and Diana because those were the two that were handling the recordings in the past. And then once we finish up recording here, I'm going to get with IT and see if they can assist me in getting it downloaded and then posted. That's something other commissions I know they have every month.

They're really great at being posted. I know it's a different—. I don't imagine it would be. I'm not sure what the challenges were. With me and Diana, it could be because of the meeting, whoever owns that meeting invite, it could be that issue.

I don't know. So once we get this finished up, I'll get with IT this afternoon and ask them to come and show me how to download and upload the content. Okay. All right. One thing, just— yep, just a quick invite for you guys.

I know it's not going to be for a while, but June 14th, Flag Day. Well, I mean, I know we always do flag it in our post, but you guys are more welcome. Okay, Chairman, appreciate it. When he gets closer, if you could send Dave—. Yeah, I will—.

A note. Yeah, well, he's going to be coming to the rest of the meeting, so he just tell us straight up. There you go. You're welcome. And pass around, pass around that our, our meetings usually it's over at 8:30.

Same day, first Monday, 12 to 1, and it is open to the public. So any— anybody can come in there and sit in there and listen and have any questions, they can ask questions.

All right. Next meeting, first Monday is the 2nd of February. Does anybody have any problems with the 2nd of February? Nope. All right, Olivia.

That'll be— 2 February is the next meeting. All right, I will entertain a motion to adjourn. Motion to adjourn. Second. Second.

All in favor? Aye. Aye. All right, any objections? Nay.

Cool. Well done. Good meeting.

So you two are going to work now? Yeah, do whatever helps you. Yeah, what I, what I wanted to do. Yeah, that's what I was talking more about. Oh, go ahead.