November 13, 2009

I know this is early since you will be receiving this edition of our magazine the early part of November however, it will be too late if not presented now. The Board of Directors and I hope that you have a very good Veterans Day and are able to attend or participate in a Memorial event in remembrance of those buddies that are no longer with us. We also send you Happy Holidays wishes.

The Annual Association Membership Meeting will be concluded and our Bylaws will have been updated as well as the Standard Procedure Manual in October. Copies of the recently changed Bylaws, and the Standard Procedure Manual will be placed on our website in November, and the Minutes of the Board of Directors and Association Membership Meeting will be presented in the November - December Magazine.

A Call for Elections for President, 1st Vice President, 2nd Vice President and four Directors is in this issue and will also appear in the November - December Magazine. You are invited to submit your desire to run for any of these offices. You should check the Standard Procedure Manual or the November - December Magazine for any change in the Call and any requirements that were changed at the October Membership Meeting for placing your name on the ballot. I hope many of you will decide to run for office.

Since this will also be the start of a new year and especially the 60th Anniversary of the beginning of the war in Korea you should make plans to attend some of the events at our 2010 Annual Association Membership Meeting which will be held in Washington, D.C. Plans are being made now for events in both Korea and in the United States. No firm plans have yet appeared for me to report other than I know plans are being studied and coordinated by the 60th Commemorative Groups in place in Korea and the United States. Many other countries that had Armed Forces involved are also in the planning stages. We are sure that our number of members will be increased for our revisit program during the 2010 time period. The revisit program will also be better because many events will be increased in Korea so they can fully honor the veterans who will be invited to attend these scheduled events during their revisit trip.

I inform you of a possible request from Korea next year for the KWVA to select some of our member's grandchildren to travel to Korea to be hosted during their stay. With a huge membership, with many members having two or more grandchildren, the only way we can be fair in our selection is to have a drawing and select only one grandchild per member. The grandchild will require a passport so if you think you would like to have yours entered in a drawing I suggest you arrange for that grandchild to get a passport now. If the offer does not come through or the grandchild is not picked during the drawing, the passport will still be necessary should they ever decide to leave the country. You must have a passport to get back into the United States now when you take a cruise or fly on vacation to another country, so it will not be a waste of money or time for a passport to be obtained now. The Canadians sent 20 grandchildren this year, who ranged from 16 to 22 years old. They enjoyed the trip and had a very good time meeting others on the trip. I suspect if we are not ready to make a selection and the grandchildren have to suddenly obtain a passport, there will be many disappointed grandchildren and members who will be sorry they did not prepare for this. Many times we are informed at the last minute that some type of requirement to honor our membership has suddenly come to light, and we do not have time to react and still be fair to all our members.

William F. Mac Swain
National President, KWVA/US