Tag Archives: Veterans
VOLUNTEER TEACHES VETERANS HOW TO BETTER TELL THEIR STORIES
Most veterans have a story to tell, from boot camp or base life, from deployments to discharge. Sometimes, they just need tips on how to tell it. Kristine Mietzner loves to help them. The former journalist, retired educator, and now a staff services manager in CalVet’s Veterans Homes division has spent more than a decade […]
80 YEARS AGO, MARINE PILOT SHOT DOWN SEVEN JAPANESE PLANES IN ONE DAY, EARNED MEDAL OF HONOR
CalVet’s Medal of Honor Wall includes 177 names of soldiers, sailors, and Marines, either from California or with California ties, who received the nation’s highest honor for heroism and valor. Each recipient and the circumstances that led to awarding the honor is a story in its own right. This time, we tell the story of […]
RETIRED ARMY MAJOR WANTS WOMEN VETERANS TO REMEMBER THEIR MILITARY-ACQUIRED SKILLS
As a U.S. Army Reservist serving in a psyops (psychological operations) unit in Iraq in 2021, Tina Knutson and her team got into the minds of Iraqi citizens while deployed to Baghdad. As a police officer and hostage negotiator during her 21-year career in law enforcement in the Alameda County city of Newark, she once […]
YES, TEACHER, GRANDMA REALLY WAS A SOLDIER, SPY, GUERILLA, AND SILVER STAR RECIPIENT
As the story goes, when Corporal Magdalena “Maggie” Leones’ granddaughter wrote a report about her grandma for a school assignment, the teacher simply didn’t believe it. Believe what? Or, was the girl simply a grandchild with an overactive imagination? Prove it, the teacher told her. Prove it, Maggie’s granddaughter did. She brought the Silver Star […]
THE GAME OF HIS LIFE PRODUCED MAJOR RESULTS
Larry Rankin faced a big decision after graduating from high school in Michigan more than two decades ago. Go to college? “I wasn’t ready for college,” he said. OK, then, follow in his Navy dad’s footsteps by joining a branch of the military? “Not for me,” Rankin said. “Never.” Then, a funny thing happened on […]
FOR WHOM THE TOLLS DON’T APPLY: ELIGIBLE VETS WON’T PAY FOR BRIDGE CROSSINGS AMONG NEW LAWS IN 2023
When the clock struck midnight and rang in 2023, it brought several new laws that will honor and benefit many of California’s 1.6 million military veterans. All were signed by Governor Gavin Newsom in 2022. Perhaps the most notable of them? We’ll cross that bridge when we come to it – literally, figuratively, and seriously. […]
GO AHEAD, MAKE MY VETERANS DAY: WHEN FORT ORD WAS A SPRINGBOARD TO HOLLYWOOD
From World War I through the first Gulf War, Fort Ord was a U.S. Army base known for producing soldiers. Today, it is home to CalVet’s California Central Coast Veterans Cemetery and also to Cal State University-Monterey Bay, among other things. For a few years in the early 1950s, however, the outpost on the Monterey […]
THE ‘THANK-YOU’ NOTES THAT MEAN SO MUCH TO CALVET’S ANALYSTS HELPING INCARCERATED VETERANS
Steven Smith scrolled through his emails one day a few months ago, and came across one that simply moved him. Smith, a United States Navy Veteran, is among the seven veterans claims analysts working directly with incarcerated veterans in California’s 35 state prisons through CalVet’s Justice Involved Veterans Initiative. The analysts help veterans—many imprisoned for […]
NEW LAWS ON THE BOOKS TO BENEFIT CALIFORNIA VETERANS, FAMILIES
Some new California laws will offer the state’s 1.6 million veterans more of what they need in life and also what they might want afterward. More veterans can now obtain a CalVet Home loan at lower, more competitive interest rates. Disabled veterans’ estates will have an easier time securing local property tax exemptions. And finally, […]
HAPPY HALLOWEEN, WITH AN EYE TO THE SKY FOR REALLY SPOOKY STUFF
With Halloween upon us, we look to the maybe not-as-friendly-as-we-thought skies for a good spooking. On October 30, 1938 – Halloween Eve – Orson Welles punk’d an entire nation with his “War of the Worlds” radio spoof. It remains to this day the most famous radio broadcast ever – even more famous than President Franklin […]
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