The Veterans at the Library held their weekly meeting at the Franklin Memorial Library Monday, July 21, at 9 a.m. With Chair Johnny Tapley presiding, they had 53 in attendance. Rev. Dr. Veteran James Mason's Church provided breakfast including scramble eggs, cheese grits, sausage, ham and some finger licking good barbecue, and Shari Watt provided orange juice, grape juice, cranberry juice and coffee. Chair Johnny recognized retiring Fire Chief Mike Strobridge for his outstanding service to our community for the past 40+ years and presented him with a VETERANS autographed Fire Truck. Chair Johnny and Veteran representative Shari Watt then presented the Library Director, Windy Ward, with a check for $600 to be used for a Library youth project that was raised from the recent Veterans Cup Golf Tournament. Chair Johnny then introduced the program for the morning, History teacher from ECI, Christian Novak. Christian's presentation was on the things we might not know about the June 6, 1944, D-Day at Normandy, France. Johnny did mention that veteran Doyle Tatum, 99 years old, was at Normandy Day 2. Two new veterans attended the meeting, Adam Bowden and Craig Walters. Bowden served in the U.S. Navy from July 3, 1996, to Jan 21, 1997, serving on the U.S. CV-67 JFK. He was also stationed at Mayport, FL. Bowden’s highest rank was E-2. Walters served in the Georgia Army National Guard for over 20 years from 1968 to 1988, serving with Company A, 878th Combat Engineer Battalion and other Companies in the 878th. His service included deployments to Egypt, Oman, Republic of Georgia, and the Dominican Republic. Walters’ highest rank was SFC E-7.
