SANATOGA PA – For a third consecutive year, members of Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 of Sanatoga will provide an honor guard, rifle volley and bugler for Veterans’ Day ceremonies to be conducted Nov. 14 (2010; Sunday) at 12:30 p.m. in the St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church cemetery in the 800 block of Buchert Road, Pottstown PA, post Adjutant William Worrell reports.
POTTSTOWN PA – U.S. Army National Guard Pvt. Trent B. Long, a 2005 graduate of Pottsgrove Senior High School, recently graduated from One Station Unit Training at Fort Knox KY, according to the Joint Hometown News Service.
Long’s training included basic combat training and advanced individual training. During his first nine weeks, Long completed basic combat training with instruction in drill and ceremony, weapons, marksmanship and bayonet training, chemical warfare, field training and tactical exercises, marches, military courtesy, military justice, physical fitness, first aid, and Army history, traditions, and core values.
Long later completed the armor crewman course for skill training in conducting tank unit defensive and offensive combat operations. He was trained to operate, service and maintain armor tracked and wheeled vehicles, load and fire tank weapon systems, perform ammunition handling and supply duties, and assist in target detection and identification.
He is the son of Tammy Long of Rivendell Lane, Lower Pottsgrove (PA) Township.
Members of the Pottsgroves American Legion Post served Sept. 11 in a color guard for the Open Doors community day event in Pottstown.
STOWE PA -There’s plenty to be talked about Thursday (Sept. 23, 2010) at 7:30 p.m., when members of the Sanatoga-based Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 gather for their September meeting in St. Gabriel Lodge, at the corner of Jefferson Street and Grosstown Road, Stowe PA. Veterans of the Legion so far have had a very busy month.
Post members Commander Ed Clark, Adjutant Billy Worrell, Larry McCann and Chuck Kropp (in photos above and below) were on hand to serve as one of two color guards available for the Open Doors community day event Sept. 11 (2010) in Pottstown PA. It included a solemn ceremony commemorating those who lost their lives during terrorist attacks in New York City.
Paying homage to the fallen of Sept. 11 terrorist attacks.
Then on Sunday (Sept. 19), Post members were again in attendance for the annual POW-MIA Recognition Day ceremonies held at the Vietnam War memorial in Memorial Park, West King Street, Pottstown, by the Friends of The Forgotten.
And as they do six times a year, Post members were busy during August (photo at bottom) conducting Bingo games for residents of the Southeastern Veterans Center in Spring City PA. The bi-monthly games are organized, operated, and supplied with prizes by the Post at no cost to the center or participants. The next games are scheduled for Oct. 26 at 7 p.m. in the center.
Photos supplied by American Legion Post Adjutant Billy Worrell
POTTSTOWN PA – A firing squad and a bugler, all of whom are members of Pottsgrove Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 of Sanatoga PA, will be among veterans participating in the annual Friends of the Forgotten POW-MIA Recognition Day ceremony to be held Sept. 19 (2010; Sunday) beginning at about 1 p.m. at the Pottstown Vietnam Veterans of America gazebo in Memorial Park, Manatawny Street, Pottstown PA.
The Friends of the Forgotten Motorcycle Club, based in Skippack PA, will conduct a ride on the same day, beginning at 11:30 a.m. from the Lone Star Steakhouse at Coventry Mall, Route 724, and ending at about 1 p.m. at the gazebo.
POW-MIA Recognition Day traditionally is conducted on the third Friday of September.
SANATOGA PA – Recent jottings from a reporter’s notebook:
Creamed Chipped Beef Vs. Scrambled Eggs
The ugly start of an uglier conversation, overheard Friday morning (June 18, 2010) at The Sunshine Cafe on West Ridge Pike in Limerick:
She: “See, we have different ideas about eating out. When I eat at a restaurant, I want to have something I normally wouldn’t cook at home. That’s not what you do.”
He: “If you cooked it well at home, I wouldn’t have to order it when we went out.”
It seemed wisest not to stick around for the rest.
Playing Catch-Up
There are never enough hours in the day, it seems, to accomplish everything on a to-do list. That’s particularly true in the news business, in which the pressure of current events keeps reporters and editors moving at a fast clip. Some things, consequently, slip through the cracks, and for that reason The Post today plays catch-up.
If you were unable to attend the formal flag retirement ceremony earlier this month (June 6, 2010) at Memorial Park in Pottstown PA, you missed a stirring and emotion-laden event. Old or tattered United States flags – no longer in appropriate shape to be publicly displayed – were formally sectioned and burned, and their ashes buried. The Postreported on it with a story and photos, but lacked time then to produce an accompanying video. See it above.
The Universal Accessible Garden is one of several demonstration, or learning, gardens Cooperative Extension operates at its county headquarters. It’s intended to show that anyone – kids of all ages; people who don’t have a lot of space; or those who suffer from physical or developmental limitations – can enjoy the relaxation and beauty of gardening. There’s something interesting and pretty to see there almost any time of year; footage in the video above was filmed last August (2009).
POTTSTOWN PA – More than 100 U.S. armed services veterans, Boy and Cub Scout troop members, and citizens who remembered all too well the horrors of wars past gathered Sunday afternoon (June 6, 2010) in Pottstown’s Memorial Park to both pay homage to the area’s Vietnam War heroes and to retire U.S. flags during a formal ceremony in which they were sectioned and burned.
Watch a video, above, in which Frank Strunk, president of the Vietnam Veterans chapter of Pottstown, explains the day’s significance and activities; or see it at The Post’s YouTube Account.
Scouts cut the stripes Sunday from a 60-foot-by-40-foot American garrison flag in a formal flag retirement ceremony at Pottstown Memorial Park.
As the flag retirement ceremony dictates, stripes were burned separately from blue fields and their stars until the ashes of both were unrecognizable.
The 18th annual flag day and retirement memorial ceremonies - sponsored by Pottstown Chapter 565 of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Pottstown Elks Lodge 814, and local scouting groups – included an honor guard provided by Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 of Sanatoga.
The area surrounding the park’s Vietnam Veterans Memorial was quiet and respectful, even though it seemed activity was everywhere. As Chapter 565 conducted its honors for 25 area residents who were killed in action in Vietnam – including nine graduates of Pottsgrove High School – scouts and scoutmasters were busy on the memorial’s east side cutting, sectioning and burning old flags no longer in condition to be presented publicly.
Flowers are laid beside 25 flags representing 25 area soldiers killed during the Vietnam War. Of them, nine were graduates of Pottsgrove High School, eight from Boyertown, five from Pottstown, and one each from Owen J. Roberts, Oley, and Daniel Boone.
National flag etiquette requires such flags “be retired in a dignified way, preferably by burning” until the remains cannot be recognized. The ashes are subsequently buried, just as were those who fell in the flag’s defense.
Elsewhere in the vast acreage of the park, people fished or went swimming in Manatawny Creek. A few rode bicycles in the parking lots. A small group played basketball at a court near King Street. Kids cooled off in the adjacent Splash Park. For all that bustle, though, the only sounds sometimes heard were the “whoosh” of a breeze fanning the flames of the flag fire pits or the words of ceremony speakers echoing across the open lawn.
Flags are intended to be sturdy. Cutting them apart, even with scissors specially sharpened for the task, wasn't easy.
Stars and stripes in separate piles await the fire pits.
POTTSTOWN PA – A formal flag retirement ceremony will be conducted Sunday (June 6, 2010) at 1 p.m. at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Memorial Park, at Manatawny and King streets, Pottstown PA, Pottsgrove American Legion Post Adjutant William Worrell announced Wednesday (June 2). The event is open to the public.
In addition to the thousands of American flags that will be burned, a 40-foot-by-60-foot garrison flag also is expected to be retired, Worrell said. That flag is held by everyone in attendance and all its stripes are cut off one at a time.
The program is being sponsored by local units of the Vietnam Veterans of America, the Boy Scouts of America, and the Elks Club. The scouts will have the responsibility of cutting the blue field from each flag. Blue fields are then burned in one pit, and the stripes in another.
The Pottsgrove post honor guard also will participate.
American Legion members, from left, Larry McCann, Billy Worrell, and John Cassidy raise the flag outside Coventry Mall.
SANATOGA PA – The colors were raised and then lowered to half mast, a bag-piper played, and members of Sanatoga-based Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 conducted a salute May 15 (2010; Saturday) during Peace Officers Memorial Day services on behalf of the North Coventry (PA) Police Department at the flag pole of the Coventry Mall, Routes 100 and 724, Pottstown PA.
The post’s firing squad fired three volleys, and was followed by its bugler playing taps. A musician of the Chester County Emerald Society Pipe Band played a tribute that included “Amazing Grace.”
Peace Officers Memorial Day commemorates federal, state and local officers killed or disabled in the line of duty, and is observed in conjunction with National Police Week.
During the ceremony, Worrell said, the American flag will be raised then lowered to half mast. The Legion firing squad will fire three volleys, followed by its bugler playing taps. Finally, a Chester County Emerald Society Pipe Band bag piper will play “Amazing Grace.”
POTTSTOWN PA – U.S. Air Force Airman Brandt M. Maharrey, a 2005 graduate of Pottsgrove High School, has graduated from basic military training at Lackland Air Force Base, San Antonio TX, the Joint Hometown News Service reported.
Maharrey is the son of Robin Sizer of Hollyberry Court, Pottstown PA.
He completed an intensive, eight-week program that included training in military discipline and studies, Air Force core values, physical fitness, and basic warfare principles and skills. Completion of basic training earned Maharrey four credits toward an associate in applied science degree through the Community College of the Air Force.
"I Went To Lower Pottsgrove Elementary"
The Facebook page for alumni of the school that once was located on North Pleasantview Road in Sanatoga, but is now home to Coventry Christian Academy.
SANATOGA PA – For a third consecutive year, members of Brig. Gen. Elmer S. Friedberg American Legion Post 244 of Sanatoga will provide an honor guard, rifle volley and bugler for Veterans’ Day ceremonies to be conducted Nov. 14 (2010; Sunday) at 12:30 p.m. in the St. Aloysius Roman Catholic Church cemetery in the 800 block of Buchert Road, Pottstown PA, post Adjutant William Worrell reports.
POTTSTOWN PA – A formal flag retirement ceremony will be conducted Sunday (June 6, 2010) at 1 p.m. at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Memorial Park, at Manatawny and King streets, Pottstown PA, Pottsgrove American Legion Post Adjutant William Worrell announced Wednesday (June 2). The event is open to the public.
SANATOGA PA – Members of 
