HomeMy WebLinkAboutCharles Opersteny Radio Transcription #2City of College Station
Heritage Programs Oral History
Interviewee: Charles Opersteny
Interviewer: Tom Turbiville
Place: College Station, Texas
Project: Veterans of the Valley
Transcriber: Brooke Linsenbardt
00:00: Tom Turbiville (TT): Yesterday we introduced you to Charles Opersteny, commander of the local American Legion. Talked about his service, his service at the old Bryan Air Force
Base and then in Newfoundland. But now, his passion is the American Legion. He has come to his hometown to command American Legion Post 159. Charles Opersteny talks about what the American
Legion does and what it is.
00:22: Charles Opersteny (CO): Veterans helping veterans. And that’s our primary goal. Is to, is to help a veteran who has a problem. To get him either into medical care, or into rehabilitation,
or somehow help him financially if we can possibly can. Or get him involved to, so he can have a job again. We wanna help our veterans here locally, we wanna also help our youth. We’re
into a program of Americanism which we, we strongly push. And of course under the Americanism, we have the Boy State program which is a good program for kids to learn about government.
They can learn about our local, state our government. We’ve, we’ve sponsored boys, scouts. We also present medals to the high schools and also the junior high schools for, for kids
who push patriotism or, or citizenship. We also have a, an or, an oratorical contest and this is a nice contest whi-, which we wish we could get more young kids involved because there
is. If they win the state champion, or the state finals, there, there’s a scholarship there so they have some money comin’. And then from there they go up to national. So they can end
up with quite a bit of money. So these are programs that we push and, and of course, we consider ourselves as a family and the family is the American Legion, the American Legion Auxiliary,
as well as the sons of the American Legion.
TT: You got the American Legion, you got the Veterans of Foreign Wars. These two groups work together, they work together very well. But what’s the difference between the two groups?
Can you belong to both? Well yeah. Here’s Charles Opersteny.
02:17: CO: The prime difference is the VFW you have to have served in a foreign combat zone during a war time period. The American Legion, we, we were incorporated by the Congress as
a wartime veteran’s organization. So you, you could have served here in the states during, like during the Korean War or World War II. Not everybody goes into a combat situation. You
have to have support personnel to, to, to support those who are in
combat. So, the, anyone that was in the service during a, a combat period, is eligible for the American Legion. And certainly I would strive to encourage more veterans to belong to the
American Legion or belong to a veterans organization. We only represent maybe not even 10% of the veterans of Brazos Valley. And I understand we have 10,000 plus veterans in the Brazos
Valley and we need these veterans to, to join so we can, can encourage legislation to help the veteran.
TT: American Legion Post 159 doing a lot of good in this community and thanks to Charles Opersteny. I’m Tom Turbiville, this is Bravo Brazos Valley, for Meis and Associates.
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