george tomko

westwood veterans council

 

Editor's note:  This interview has been edited for clarity and length.

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My volunteering goes back a long time. We all happen to belong to a gun club in Riverdale and the current the American Legion Post over there was meeting in the same building and I knew a lot of the guys that were there. And I also knew some of the guys that were members, some of them from being in Scouts and most of them were World War II  guys and I just said okay, they're getting up in age. What can I do to help them?  And from there it just evolved further and further on and the guy that got me into the Rivervale Post eventually got me active in the county Legion, and I'm still active over there. So I spent a lot of time with them. And when my friend Steve passed, I sort of got the baton for the Westwood Veterans Council and have been handling it ever since.

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So I try to keep these older guys involved. Okay, we know you're there. What can we do to help you?  Anything you need?  We're just calling the checkup, make sure you're still around how you're doing.  

 

Between the two posts, we've probably got about 80 members but The World War II guys are getting to be few and far between.

 

I served in Germany and I keep saying we had nothing going on except they tried to put missiles in Cuba and they built a wall in Berlin.

 

And now I am active with the Memorial Day Services and Veterans Day Services.  We're still trying to find World War II guys that we haven't recognized at this point.  I’ve got one gus who was at D Day. So we're trying to get a hold of him and see if we get him to come out. But without actually having a parade for the last two years, it sort of makes it a little bit more difficult.

 

My thoughts for anyone thinking about volunteering?  Well, service to the community can come through the back door!  That’s what happened to me!

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