America Supporting Americans Greater Conejo Valley Chapter

Our ASA docents work with the community to prepare and send cards, letters and care packages to our troops serving overseas. Recently, the docents along with a couple of other ASA volunteers spent a day helping grade school students. ASA partnered with Art Trek and Rotary Westlake Village Sunrise to prepare packages of art project supplies for students working from home with their online teachers. Docents received bulk supplies and broke them into quantities needed by individ...ual students. These packs were delivered to locations where parents could pick them up. Our docents loved helping students that might one day receive packages from ASA as troops serving our country. Special thanks to ASA docents Geri, Carol L, Helen, Kristen, Marlene, Carol S, and Rosalie, to ASA Past President Jim, and to Evie and Joe for their work and contributions to this project!

While the pandemic is still with us, ASA-GCVC wants to remind our community of patriots not to forget our beloved troops! We haven't! Our docents and other volunteers at the ASA Store in Thousand Oaks have been busy at work packing and shipping care packages (while complying with CA and local pandemic restrictions, of course). Since March, we have shipped over 100 boxes to 6 different units in the Army, Navy, and Marines. We are so grateful for all the individuals in our ar...med forces for their service to our country. And I send special appreciation to all our docents, Board members, and volunteers! You too can get involved with ASA-GCVC, as a volunteer or donor. We are a non-profit charitable organization. To pack up care packages, we need products that the units need and want while they are deployed. To ship care packages, we need cash donations...USPS charges ~$20 for each flat rate box we ship. Thank you for considering contributing to our mission of connecting with our active military!

May 8th, 2020 is the 75th anniversary of VE day, Victory in Europe day. 75 years ago, three quarters of a century ago, there was the formal declaration of victory in Europe, the formal declaration by the Allied command that the Axis powers, most importantly, the high command of Nazi Germany had signed an unconditional surrender bringing World War II in Europe to an end, a horrifying end, a final end. The unconditional surrender of all Nazi military forces was signed at 2:41 A...Continue reading

"I am the Flag" Check out this short video with Jimmy Weldon on the American Flag. Encourage use in schools so kids will know this history!

ARLINGTON CEMETERY and its Amazing Guards; God bless and keep them! Jeopardy Question: On Jeopardy the other night, the final question was "How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns?" All three contestants missed it! 1. How many steps does the guard take during his walk across the tomb of the Unknowns and why? 21 steps: It alludes to the twenty-one gun salute which is the highest honor given any military or foreign dignitar...Continue reading

watch to the end

We are thrilled to make this announcement and if we could we would climb the highest mountain and SHOUT come to San Mateo and meet our heroes, Screaming Eagles and Vietnam Vets, and all veterans who served our country. This is America at it's best!! Together We Stand. Save the date: March 21st.

A WWll Vet, a medic, has written about his experience in the D Day landing in France. His effort is read to an audience by Sam Elliot. POWERFUL!

On Jan 18, 1919, the leaders of the Allied powers US France, Great Britain and Italy met in Paris after World War I to negotiate a peace treaty with the Central Powers, notably Germany. Although the Allied powers had already signed a ceasefire agreement with Germany at Rethondes, France on November 11, 1918, the peace treaty talks were delayed until after David Lloyd George, the British prime minister at the time, confirmed his mandate in a general election. Over the next... six months, President Woodrow Wilson sought to invoke a peace without victory, seeking to ensure that the Germans not be treated too harshly. Lloyd George and French Prime Minister Georges Clemenceau argued, however, that the Germans must be punished severely to justify the war’s huge cost in blood and treasure and to keep the Germans in a weakened and, therefore, unthreatening state. Wilson finally gave way on this issue in return for support for his pet project, an international peacekeeping body. The League of Nations did come to pass, although the Senate rejected Wilson’s pleas for U.S. participation. While many nations were present, the Big Four, joined at times by Japan, ran the show. German diplomats were excluded from the peace conference until May. When they arrived in Paris, they were presented with a non-negotiable draft of the Versailles Treaty. Having placed great faith in Wilson's promises, the Germans were disillusioned by the pact, which required them to accept sole blame for the war, pay large reparations to the victors and cede wide swaths of territory. The treaty was signed on June 28, 1919, five years to the day after a Serbian assassin took the life of Austrian Archduke Franz Ferdinand, sparking the conflict that cost tens of millions of lives. Inauguration of the League of Nations, on Jan. 16, 1920, brought a formal end to the conference.

ASA is sending Valentine's Day cards to our assigned unit written by students at local schools. We are grateful to the students and teachers in the Conejo Valley for working with ASA to show appreciation for our troops!!

The soldiers overseas in the 24th Infantry Regiment received our care packages! They loved the candy and the snacks. Thank you to everyone who donated and to all our volunteers for helping us pack and letting our troops know we appreciate them.

The Dec 15, 2019 edition of the Louisville, KY local paper - The Courier-Journal - published the obituary for Private First-Class John "Jack" Richard Bayens, US Marine Corps. The picture associated with the obituary was of a young 20-year-old in full dress Marine uniform. This Private First-Class of the US Marine Corps was killed between the 20th and the 23rd of November in 1943, but his obituary was run in The Courier-Journal only a few weeks ago. The obituary read simply, "...US Marine Corps, Private First-Class John Richard Bayens, 20, of Louisville, was killed in action during World War II's Battle of Tarawa, on the island of Betio in the Tarawa Atoll, Gilbert Island. Private Bayens was a member of B Company, 1st Battalion, 6th Marine Regiment, Second Marine Division, Fleet Marine Force. The Private First-Class was awarded a Purple Heart, The American Defense Medal, The Asiatic Pacific Campaign Medal and WWII Victory Medal, Good Conduct Medal, and the Presidential Unit Citation. He was buried on Tarawa in an unmarked mass grave, and later he was classified as Missing In Action." The obituary notes that the burial site was not discovered until Mar 2019 by History Flight Inc, a non-profit organization that works in cooperation with the US defense POW/MIA Accounting Agency. Private First-Class Bayens started his journey back home to Louisville in July of 2019 along with the remains of 21 other Marines, who were first flown to Hawaii to be positively identified. So, 76 years after his death - on Monday, Dec 16, 2019 - Private First-Class Bayens was buried close to his parents in Louisville's Evergreen Cemetery. He was only 17 years old when, as per the obituary, "In his heart, he felt the call to serve." The battle in which he was killed was one of the bloodiest of the Pacific Campaign. It took place between the 20th and the 23rd of Nov 1943, in an effort undertaken by the US to press back against the Japanese empire. The battle was a part of what became known as the massive Operation Galvanic, the biggest operation at that point in the Pacific theater, involving 17 aircraft carriers, eight heavy cruisers, and no less than 66 destroyers. Eventually, the US Marine Corps and Navy provided 35,000 troops directly involved in the battle. Out of the 35,000 US troops, there were at least 1,000 casualties, many of them buried in those unmarked graves on the island. Amongst the Japanese, the code of honor forbade surrender, and thus they fought to the death. 97% of the 4,500 Japanese troops on the island were killed in action. This is a good reminder of the debt we owe as a nation to those who die on foreign shores to purchase and pay for our freedom.

We received this note from the Captain of our 101st Airborne Infantry Regiment in response to the care package that we shipped to them: "The Soldiers love and appreciate them. There is something powerful about receiving support from groups of people that we don’t even know. It gives the Soldiers perspective on the appreciation that communities have for their service, and it is very encouraging. We can’t thank you enough for organizing support for us."

ASA is starting a drive to write Valentine cards to troops in Iraq. Please visit ASA to write a card - located in the Janss Mall, between Gold's Gym and Nordstom rack.