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Driven volunteers
DAV volunteers make sure vets have a ride to doctors
Friday, July 3, 2009
 Click here to enlarge this photo Staff photos by EMILY BARNES
Members of John C. DeMarr Jr., Chapter 36 of Disabled American Veterans are Leon Parks, front left, Don Halter, Marie Halter, Jerome Jameson, Richard Parks, back left, Jim McConnell and Chris Crecelius.
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For the members of John C. DeMarr, Chapter 36, Disabled American Veterans, it's about giving something back to the community and making sure veterans are not only cared for but remembered.
The one and only Forget-me-not fundraiser held each year in September supports the hospitalization and rehabilitation costs of disabled veterans
The chapter meets once a month, save for July and August, to discuss business and go over upcoming projects.
Among the most popular of these projects is the transportation program, a van service that is staffed by volunteers who pick up disabled veterans in Lexington Park, La Plata and Waldorf, and drive them to doctor appointments at the Veterans Affairs Hospital in Washington, D.C.
Six volunteer drivers make up the squad, among them Leon Parks, a Vietnam veteran who retired from the U.S. Army after 24 years of service.
"I went to a disabled veterans meeting, heard they needed drivers," said Parks, a Bryans Road resident. "I'm doing to give back. These veterans are a lot worse off than me."
The program, coordinated by Marie Halter, a former DAV chapter commander and its current chaplain, counts on volunteers to keep it moving, including her husband, Don Halter, who is a U.S. Navy veteran but not a DAV member.
The program was established by the late Ken McCoy, a past DAV commander.
McCoy founded the transportation project in 1995. The VA pays for the gas and vehicle upkeep, after that, it is up to chapter members to drive veterans to VA appointments. Along the way, friendships are established, Parks said.
And D.C. traffic is tolerated.
"I can't say I enjoy the traffic," said driver Jim McConnell, who is a 21-year veteran of the U.S. Army Reserves. "But I don't mind it."
It was in traffic that McConnell first found out about the transportation program. On his way to work in a district post office, McConnell would see the van navigate traffic.
After he retired, he looked into becoming a volunteer. He's been driving about seven years.
Marie Halter, the chapter's only female commander since its beginning in 1979, isn't a driver but she's drafted husband, Don, to take the wheel.
The Halters met in Connecticut, while Don was attending submarine school. Marie was a volunteer at the Sea-Hos (short for Sea Hostess) Club, a sort of USO organization where women would cook, talk or dance with the serviceman stationed in the area. By then, Marie Halter was a U.S. Navy veteran who had served during World War II.
She worked in a communications department while stationed in New York City and was among one of the telelgraphers who received the message that WW II had officially ended.
After she was discharged from the Navy, Marie wound up back in her native Connecticut and volunteering at am USO-type club where she vowed not to give her phone number to any of the guys who happened by. That rule went out the window when she met Don.
They married and have three children , seven grandchildren, two great-grandchildren and one on the way.
The couple, married 56 years in September, moved to Charles County after Don Halter took a teaching job in Alexandria, Va.
When Don Halter isn't still working on the Waldorf home he built in 1957 — he's putting on a new roof and hopes to one day convert the house to solar power — he is helping his wife with DAV activities.
Chris Crecelius, of Lexington Park is another driver who, like the Halters, can't just sit around.
"I gotta do something," said Crecelius, a U.S. Navy veteran. "I have to keep myself occupied."
Parks hopes younger veterans will join organizations geared toward helping other servicemen and women.
"I'm the second youngest driver and I'm 66," he said. "I'm always recruiting. I say, ‘Look here, you need to join … you have to be a part of this.' I encourage them to be part of the solution."
Past commanders of John C. DeMarr, Chapter 36, DAV
1979-81 Lester Flint
1981-83 Mark DeMartini
1983-85 Richard Bamberger
1985-86 Mark DeMartini
1986-88 Charles Lewis
1988-89 Robert Clark
1989-90 Richard Bamberger
1990-92 Harry E. Yaukey, Sr.
1992-93 Kenneth McCoy
1993-97 Marie Halter
1997-98 Kenneth McCoy
1998-2001 Richard Bamberger
2001-04 John Patterson
2004-05 George H. Crofoot
2005-06 Richard Bamberger
2006-07 George H. Crofoot
2007-08 John Patterson
2008-present Troy A. Garner
