Austin, Texas Chapter

The Association for all Military Officers
Companion Bulletin- September 2010

Words from the Commander: NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE NOTICE  Our first Dinner meeting will be held on September 2, 2010. This is the first Thursday of the month. Next month we will resume meeting on the second Thursday. Hello Companions and Friends, Welcome back from your summer vacations and excursions. It is time for another year of exciting and entertaining programs and for companions and friends to fellowship .    I am pleased to serve as your Commander for the 2010-2011 session of the Austin Chapter Military Order of the World Wars. It is such a special privilege to be entrusted with the responsibility of serving with distinguished and honored fellow citizens. I vow to serve you with the pride and enthusiasm deserved of this position.    We have a challenge, as do many other similar organizations, in recruiting eligible members from the community to join MOWW. Membership is the lifeblood of any organization and MOWW is no exception. Let us all do our best to increase our local membership this year. The next critical factor for the existence of an organization is participation. I commend all of you who have so graciously stepped forward to propose and plan our program for the coming year in the absence of a First Vice Commander, hint, hint...the position remains unoccupied waiting for someone to "sign on." It only takes a phone call or an email to any one of the names listed in this issue of The Companion.

While mentioning The Companion, this is a good time to ask all of you to give J R Howard a big THANK YOU for faithfully serving as our "Webmeister" and Editor of The Companion. He does an outstanding job!    As the year progresses, your participation will remain extremely important to the success of our Chapter and organization. I also thank all of the officers who will remain in their positions for the coming organizational year.    As noted above, we have had to make a couple of meeting adjustments to our routine this year---the first being this month. The second adjustment will occur in February when we meet on 3 February 2011. We appreciate your understanding and flexibility.    Before closing, we extend a big THANK YOU to outgoing Commander Rudy and his staff for an outstanding year of service . We truly appreciate the dedication, leadership and tireless effort expended to maintain the vitality and energy needed for our chapter. Thank you ALL!    We look forward to seeing all of you on 2 September 2010---same place, same time! -COL Leon Holland, USA (Ret.) Meeting. Our next meeting will be September 2th  at the Holiday Inn Northwest (Mopac & Hwy 183).  Join us for an evening of socializing, dining, and an melodious presentation. Speaker Andrew Patterson - Former school principal and head of the State Education Program Office. Ask him about his '96 heart by-pass.

MOWW Scripture and Commentary September 2010 (Chaplain Ernie Dean) I hate, I despise your festivals, and I take no delight in your solemn assemblies. Even though you offer me your burnt offerings and grain offerings, I will not accept them; and the offerings of well-being of your fatted animals I will not look upon. Take away from me the noise of your songs; I will not listen to the melody of your harps. (Amos 5:21-23) Amos, a master prophet, one close to the heart of God, is bringing a stern word from God to those who are supposed to be believers. The issue has been the injustice practiced by the people. "Make it your aim to do what is right, not what is evil, so that you may live"(Amos5:14). What are examples of injustice God has in mind? In Amos 8:4-6, God says Listen to this, you that trample on the needy and try to destroy the poor of the country. You say to yourselves, 'We can hardly wait for the holy days to be over so that we sell our grain… Then we can overcharge, use false measures, and fix the scales to cheat our customers. We can sell worthless wheat at a high price. We will find a poor man who cannot pay his debts, not even the price of a pair of sandals, and we will buy him as a slave.' The old world and the new world sound quite a lot alike! Who can change it? You and I can. We can refuse to be part of any such destructive behavior and insist those who are crooked are called to accountability. Looking the other say is not an option. Letting someone else attempt corrective measures is not an option. "Hate what is evil, love what is right, and see that justice prevails in the courts," says Amos (5:15). Yes, we have enormous debt problems at all levels of government. Yes, we have recall after recall in industry. Yes, we know of slipshod procedures, questionable bookkeeping, and immoral behavior.

But, we know, also, of folks who make a difference. You and I can be counted as making a difference if that is our wish. We have only to step up, speak out, and act. God loves God's creation. God made it to be good; God was very pleased (Gen.1:31). And God decided long ago to have a cooperative relationship with us, so we have a major role in establishing and maintaining a quality of life that meets God's desires and expectations. Hear once again these most famous words of Amos; be in prayer that we get it right. Let justice roll down like waters, and righteousness like an ever flowing stream. (Amos 5:24 Congressional Spending: Tired of standing by while our government puts us deeper in debt. In addition to contacting your legislators there is now an alternative means of expressing your concerns through YouCut. This is a Republican party initiative designed to defeat the permissive culture of runaway spending in Congress. It allows taxpayers to vote, both online and on their cell phones, on spending cuts that they want to see the House enact. Weekly it provides a number issues, along with a short explanation of each and the savings that would be accrued on how government can save money or eliminate fraud/waste/abuse through legislation. At http://republicanwhip.house.gov/YouCut/ you can vote on weekly choices for your priorities for reducing federal government spending. Do they use sterilized needles for lethal injections?   If a man stands in the middle of the forest speaking and there is no woman around to hear him....Is he still wrong? When Adolph Hitler declared himself ruler of the Third Reich, what did he view as Germany's first and second Reich's? A: The first was the Holy Roman Empire of Charlemagne; the second was Bismarck's united Germany, declared in 1871 and known as the German Empire.

Chapter Officers Commander Col Leon Holland 335-1224 Vice Commander Treasurer Col Andrew McVeigh 261-6272 Adjutant Mrs. Patricia Egan 750-1399 Chaplin LtCol Ernest S. Dean 477-5390 Youth Leadership Conference LtCol Thomas W. Anderson 445-4480 ROTC Awards Col Leon Holland 335-1224 Newsletter & Web Site LtCol J. Robert Howard 848-0285

Schedule: 1830-1900 - Social 1900-1905 - Invocation & Salutes 1905-1945 - Dinner 1945-2000 - Break 2000-2045 - Program 2045-2100 - Adjourn. Staff Meeting The next staff meeting will be at the call of the Commander. Remember that not getting what you want is sometimes a stroke of luck.

 

VA Prostate Cancer Program Update 08: Researchers urged doctors to discuss with patients the benefits of Merck & Co.s Proscar for preventing prostate cancer, after a study found that prescribing of the product didnt increase when a 2003 trial showed the medicine wards off tumors. The drug, also sold generically as finasteride, was shown to reduce some mens risk of developing prostate cancer by 18% from 24%, in a trial described in the New England Journal of Medicine in JUL 03. Over the next two years, there was no increase in finasteride prescriptions aimed at preventing that disease, according to a 10 AUG report in the journal Cancer Epidemiology, Biomarkers & Prevention. Doctors failure to prescribe more of the medicine may have resulted in more cases of prostate cancer, said Ian M. Thompson, lead author of the 2003 study and chairman of the department of urology at the University of Texas Health Science Center, in San Antonio. If men over the age of 55 with certain risk factors were given finasteride, diagnoses of prostate cancer in the U.S. would shrink by 40,000 to 60,000 a year, he said. ―There are no other proven ways of reducing your risk of prostate cancer -- this is the only one,‖said Thompson, When you lose, don't lose the lesson Is it true that cannibals won't eat clowns because they taste funny? VA Burial ~ Gravesite Locator: At http://gravelocator.cem.va.gov/j2ee/servlet/NGL_v1 you can search for burial locations of veterans and their family members in VA National Cemeteries, state veterans cemeteries, various other military and Department of Interior cemeteries, and for veterans buried in private cemeteries when the grave is marked with a government grave marker. Cantaloupes: (Not veteran related but good to know if you like cantaloupes as much as I do): Cantaloupes can have up to 20% sugar, the sweetest of any melon -- but a bum specimen often tastes no more exciting than a cucumber. They are unique among melons in that they are the only ones that continue to ripen after they're harvested. It's not a lot; most of the sugar-and-perfume-making has to happen while it's on the vine, but the good news is that when you buy a freshly harvested melon that already smells terrific, you can go to bed knowing that it's going to get even better. The other thing that's unique about cantaloupes is that when they're fully mature, they "slip" from the vines and don't need to be cut from the plant. Look at the stem end, where it's connected to the vine. You want what's called a "full slip" -- an "innie" of a belly button, nice and clean. If it's an outie, that means the picker tore the fruit away before it's ready, and it won't ripen. It's a sure sign of a flavorless melon.