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Air Force Joins VVPOA for Arizona the Beautiful

VVPOA clean two  miles of Highway 260 four times annually rain or shine

VVPOA Adopt a Highway group cleans two miles of AZ Hwy 260 four times a year in rain or shine

Sedona AZ (May 19, 2015) – The following is a letter to the SedonaEye.com editor:

Dear Editor,

VERDE VALLEY & ARIZONA pride requires a Team Effort to be effective!

On behalf of the Verde Village Property Owner’s Association (VVPOA), I wish to express my appreciation for the support given to the highway cleanup groups by Reese’s Tire Pros, Tire Pro, Randall’s Restaurant and Folksville USA America the Beautiful & BagReadyJobs. Due to their combined efforts and support, it makes our VVPOA Adopt-A-Highway group feel appreciated.

The donuts and coffee was appreciated, thank you!

Our VVPOA group often wonders if the Verde Valley residents and community leaders appreciates what all Adopt-A-Highway groups do for their community based on the lack of recognition by our community leaders. We at VVPOA clean our two-mile section of Highway 260 section every 3 months, rain or shine, in an effort to demonstrate our pride in our community.

We wonder if all residents understand that our VVPOA effort helps to maintain or increase the value of all Verde Valley properties and the image of our community.

Folksville VVPOA Air Force 2

AZ highway litter lifters at work

We believe that if the Cottonwood Town Council and other town councils would recognize the efforts of all Verde Valley Adopt-A-Highway groups once per year and formatted on the Camp Verde Town Council’s efforts to recognize area Adopt-A-Highway groups, this would be very helpful!

The VVOPA would like to thank all of the volunteers who help with the highway 260 cleanup on the Verde Village Property Owners’ Association two-mile section. On May 16 we had 19 volunteers. Ten of these volunteers were led by Air Force recruiter TSgt Sean Dore, Air Force Unit 362, Prescott, AZ.

The Air Force crew consisted of TSgt Sean Dore, Gabrielle Spalding, Molly Marshall, Tania Jarquin, Tyler Wells, Anthony Ohara, Emmanuel Morales, Shelby Grinter and Heather Parks.

Folksville VVPOA Air Force 3

Prescott Air Force volunteers join Hwy 260 litter abatement effort

TSgt Sean Dore’s email to VVPOA and Folksville USA on May 13, 2015 read as follows:

“Yes Sir,

The main reason I’m getting my future Airmen involved in the community is because they had already committed themselves to the service of our great nation and I believe that the service to our communities is just as important, and great way to get involved is helping an organization who is dedicated to cleaning up Arizona’s veterans highways. I currently have seven men and women who are in my Delayed Enlistment Program or DEP, who are all qualified and have taken the oath of enlistment and are just waiting to leave for Air Force basic training. I have also encouraged them to bring along any friends and family members who are interested in helping.

Thank you for the contact information, Mal seems excited to have us aboard.”

Sean R. Dore, TSgt, USAF
362nd Recruiting Squadron Prescott, AZ
Office: 928-778-1370
Fax: 928-445-3782
Cell: 928-220-0799

Folksville VVPOA Air Force 4

Next America & Arizona the Beautiful litter pick up scheduled for August 15, 2015

The VVPOA members consisted of Debra LaFrance, Dale Torgeason, Gene Carrigan, Mark Andersen, Rita Miller, Greg Gill, Allen Osthoff and Lyle Oberg (my apologies for any name misspellings). These are just the names of those that contributed on May 16 and there are many others who repeatedly help to keep our two-mile section of Highway 260 clean every 3 months.

I would like the elected officials and leaders of the Verde Valley, Yavapai County, businesses, residents and our educators to know that we will never solve the litter issues we face until all of those mentioned get involved in some manner.

Those mentioned could provide a helping-hand or contribute something of value to all of the Adopt-A-Highway groups that make our communities appealing to residents, tourists and visitors. In some manner “saying thank you” to all of the Adopt-A-Highway groups goes a long way and it could start with our many community mayors. I am aware of the efforts of Camp Verde Mayor Charlie German and his Town Council since I have had the opportunity to speak before them.

Folksville VVPOA Air Force 5

Service to community motivates Air Force and VVPOA anti litter effort

Hopefully our Verde Valley and Yavapai County community will get involved so that we all may benefit from the next America & Arizona the Beautiful effort scheduled for August 15, 2015. Please contact me if you would like to be part of this community team effort.

Malcolm (Mal) Otterson

VVPOA Adopt-A-Highway Coordinator

Verde Village Property Owners Association

(928) 634-9785

11 Comments

  1. It’s amazing and pathetic!

    With Memorial Day coming up, it’s pretty pathetic that there haven’t been any comments posted for the efforts of our US Air Force group, Verde Village Property Owners Association (VVPOA) that consists of Vietnam era veteran Mal Otterson and may other veterans that are part of the VVPOA effort.

    What about the other Adopt-A-Highway groups mentioned, don’t they deserve a “thank you”?

    It’s no wonder that there are fewer Adopt-A-Highway groups in our area and our highway cleanliness is on the decline and accumulating more trash..

    How much time and energy does it take to say “Thank you” to those that make you look good?

    Gary Chamberlain
    Folksville USA
    “America the Beautiful & BagReadyJobs”
    Empowering our nation’s youth
    FolksvilleUSA@gmail.com
    (928) 202-1186

  2. E. Maddock says:

    Thank you, Gary, for a worthwhile reminder. As indicated by the silence we casually accept the growing society of inconsiderate individuals that take for granted someone else will be their lifetime nursemaids and pick up after them. It is shameful the lack of respect and appropriate acknowledgement shown by once again the selfish who refuse to take responsibility for their own actions.

    For sure all volunteer Litter Lifters, including the Air Force, deserve at least a “Thank You” for caring enough to actively fill the role as public servants.

    In the meantime, enjoy a great American Holiday – Memorial Day – honoring those who truly gave. Without their ultimate contribution it’s possible none of us, or at least some of us, would even be around to be litter bugs and impose on others to clean up the mess.

  3. Teresa Kline says:

    Interesting Angles – Enjoyed reading.

  4. Only surviving combat soldiers can tell their story with any accuracy.

    As I was hanging my American flag up today in remembrance of Memorial Day (May 25, 2015), I was revisiting my last minutes in Vietnam after being air lifted out of the field, full of morphine with my best buddy laying next to me in a UH-1 helicopter. I was going home. I was one of the lucky ones so to speak.

    More importantly to this story is my reoccurring memory not of my circumstance but of the two American soldiers that lost their earthly voices on October 27, 1967. They did not return home and their Western Union telegram to their families was much different than mine!

    I didn’t know either of these two American combat soldiers but I was on the friendly side of an NVA bunker when I spotted them. These two wounded American soldiers had encountered the full wrath of enemy NVA machine gun. I will never forget the desire to help them and be close enough to know that they were so riddled with bullets that their fate was most likely sealed but we stilled tried to help them. Leave no soldier behind was instilled in us!

    In the end, try as we might to help them, they perished on that day only to be remembered as true “Hero’s” that gave of themselves for the good of their combat partners and our country.

    Though I have my own memories of my Vietnam experience, I’m alive, able and willing to help tell their story. As veterans and families of fallen soldiers, we must keep their stories alive with the hope that those who live in this country somehow appreciate the sacrifice others have paid for them.

    The take-away message about these two United States combat soldiers is that there were 58,220 Armed Forces members that lost their life in Vietnam so the rest of us could try to make them proud of their service and our accomplishments.

    For me, my heart has much empathy for those that serve our country and especially our combat soldiers.

    What do you do to make America worth them dying for us?

    Gary Chamberlain
    Vietnam veteran 1967
    Chu Lai, Vietnam
    B Troop, 1st Squadron, 1st Armored Cavalry
    Cornville, AZ USA

  5. Thank you all. We could use more like you people.

  6. I received this email message today (5/25/15 at 8:34am) from my First Sergeant in Vietnam and with his permission, I would like to share it with you for many reasons. First Sergeant Jim Johnson will be 88 years old in about three months. Think about it, how old was he in 1967?

    You could trust First Sergeant Jim Johnson and Captain David Staley mentioned in his comments with your life!

    My memory of First Sergeant Jim Johnson while I was one of his many troops was that he was 7’-6” tall and as stern as a steel pipe. When we reunited in Texas a few years ago he told me that he was only 5’-10 ½” tall and weighed 155 pounds. We both laughed!

    Over the years we have kept in touch, for he is just one of those guys you always admire for their service to country as a military leader and a community leader.

    My First Sergeant Jim Johnson’s email to me in response to the letter to the Editor titled “Only surviving combat soldiers can tell their story with any accuracy” is as follows:

    “Yes Gary, I remember that day pretty well. We had approximately 16 men hit that day including 3 medics on the track just behind us.

    I loaded Edward Moldavan and Francis Schmautz on a chopper with a medic trying to keep them alive but they were probably already dead.

    Later Captain Staley and I loaded some more soldiers from the 8th Cavalry-First Cavalry Division who were defiantly dead.

    When I went to the medic down at the Chu Lai hospital the next day to check on the wounded, I raised hell with the medic because they hadn’t even washed your face from the previous day’s battle.

    That has been a few years ago hasn’t it?

    Hope you are all doing well.

    You all have a good Memorial Day and God bless both of you — Jim

  7. GAASP Sedona says:

    Is this a joke? Maybe the USAF could stop spraying our skies with toxic aluminum nanometer-sized particles if they truly want to keep Arizona beautiful. For more information, visit us on FaceBook or any number of websites like GeoEngineeringWatch.org, AirCrap.org and GeoEngineeringActivistNetwork.org.

    JUST WATCH THE SKIES. Modern jets, equipped with high-bypass turbofan engines, do NOT create contrails, with the rare exception of fighter jets, which have turboJET engines, and sometimes in >90% humidity, which is RARE. All trails are SPRAYS and geoengineers are talking about it openly now. Google David Keith and Ken Caldeira. Not a theory anymore!

  8. Very well spelled out, Gary. I also served in Vietnam , in 1969. 75th support Battalion, 5th Mechanized Infantry, LZ Sharon, Quang Tri, and Da Nang, I Corp. I congratulate you for speaking out on behalf of veterans in the Verde Valley and elsewhere. I regret to tell you that within our general neighborhood of about 50 homes, we observed only 2 American flags flying this Memorial Day weekend. An extremely pathetic showing, and lack of respect for our fallen comrades, dating back over the past 250 years.

    Wayne F. Johnson
    1st Lieutenant
    U.S. Army
    Ordnance Corp

  9. American Legion Post 93 invites you to join us.

    As the Post Commander of Camp Verde American Legion Post 93, our Post would like to invite the public to join us on May 30, 2015 as we clean up Highway 260. All participants need to be 12 years of age. We would like to use this opportunity to work with the youth in our community.

    Post 93 would like to thank Camp Verde Domino’s Pizza Manager Anastazia Morison for their contribution of five pizzas to support our cleanup efforts.

    We would also like to thank Cottonwood Home Depot OPS Manager Tim Garner for contributing five “Unger” litter grabbers.

    Finally, we would like to thank Vietnam veteran Gary Chamberlain “America the Beautiful & BagReadyJobs” and his team for making these contributions and this team effort possible.

    Anyone wishing to help us with this effort may reach me at American Legion Post 93 (928) 567-6154 or my home (928) 592-3969.

    Jim Dickinson, Post Commander

    American Legion Post 93

    Camp Verde, AZ

  10. THANK YOU,

    I would like to thank Eddie Maddock, Teresa Kline, Prentice Cousins, Frances Nixon, GAASP, Wayne Johnson and Jim Dickinson for taking the time to read and comment on this article and to get involved as American Legion Post 93 is doing.

    Dear GAASP, Our Armed Forces men and women take their orders from the Commander-in-Chief, you might want to contact him with your concerns.

    Without taking sides, so I can love all my elected officials equally, I want to thank Eddie Maddock for taking the time to follow and comment on many of our efforts.

    I hope that those of you that follow our efforts do share our stories with others as we all try to restore the beauty to “America and Arizona the Beautiful”.

    Gary Chamberlain
    “America the Beautiful & BagReadyJobs”
    Empowering our nation’s youth
    FolksvilleUSA@gmail.com
    (928) 202-1186

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