Dear gentle reader (see what I did there?) and fellow veterans, it has been a very busy few months for the Paso Robles VFW. As we enter the 250th celebration of our great nation, we too celebrate local achievements and our members' success and accomplishments.
Our country has turned 250 years old! Guess what else? Our very own VFW member, Robert Hager, turned 100 years old on April 29! Comrade Hager recalled D-Day, stating that his mother had turned the radio on for music, but instead all they heard was the awful news of the attack on Pearl Harbor. Comrade Hager was only 15 1/2 years old at this time. Five days before his 18th birthday, Comrade Hager enlisted in the U.S Navy and attended boot camp in Great Lakes, Illinois. He already knew Morse code, so he was slotted to go to radio school in Memphis. However, an officer had seen him doing amateur magic shows and intervened, and was sent to Honolulu instead. Upon arrival there, no one knew what to do with him since they already had two professional magicians, so they sent him to be part of the crew on the U.S.S. Pelias, a submarine tender anchored in Pearl Harbor, where he was a “deck ape.” During the first week of January 1945, the Pelias sailed for the Midway Islands, two little sand piles nearly in the middle of the Pacific Ocean.
Shortly after that, the Pelias returned stateside and Robert was transferred to the island, where he requested a position in the Supply Department. When the war ended, he was sent back to Honolulu, where he remained until he was sent back to the Great Lakes for discharge in 1946.
Comrade Hager eventually graduated from UCSB, married his wife Doris, had a family, worked as a counselor for 30 years, and wound up in Paso Robles after his retirement and extensive traveling.
As a proud WWII veteran, Comrade Hager says, “I believe that our nation should always be prepared for war.”
We know as a community that war is ugly and so is the loss of our brave service members, but Comrade Hager has proven that through the ugly, through the struggles, through a sense of humor or amateur magic tricks, there is beauty and comfort in what we fight for as a nation. If you see or know Comrade Hager, make sure you wish him a happy belated 100th birthday!
VFW Post 10965 enjoys celebrating our veterans and showcasing our work through this magazine, and we couldn’t be more excited about our past events that we have hosted and the accomplishments since our last article.
In February we attended the national legislative conference in Washington D.C to advocate for veterans benefits and rights, in March we held our first Marathon fundraiser known as the BUZZ marathon, we raised nearly 17k for our post, in may we received City Council approval to begin the stages of building a monument at veterans park that will symbolize and honor all of those who served, and in June we attended the VFW State conference where we voted in our new leadership.
These past few months have been incredibly busy, yet fruitful. We encourage anyone interested in learning more about our monument project to go to our website (www.vfwpost10965.org/) and click on Veterans Park Monument.
As we celebrate our nation's birthday this month, let us not focus on petty differences, or what side of the aisle you stand, or be combative when there is a difference of opinion; rather, let's focus on why we have a 250th birthday and all of the men and women who died to ensure our freedom. Our country and our flag isn’t a representation of a singular group or a specific party — it represents valor & bravery (red), purity and innocences (white), vigilance & perseverance (blue), and have been fought for by our veteran community.
All this said let us celebrate the nations 250th with a different lens, let us be happy for a WWII veteran who has lived 100 years, let us be happy for the simple things like magic tricks, a home-cooked meal, the breath in our lungs and the smile on our face, let us show our future generations that hard work, decency, mutual respect, and overall gratitude for what we have is more important than petty differences, and let us celebrate our nation that we all benefit from living in.
