Pocahontas Veterans Honor Corps Gives American Flags To County Schools

Dunmore, WV – The Pocahontas County Veterans Honor Corps has been busy making sure that all Pocahontas County school classrooms have an American flag to proudly display. Honor Corps Vice Commander Harlan Whiting explains how this came about.

“Last year when we done our Patriotic programs at the school, we were approached by a couple of teachers at Green Bank for two classroom flags,” says Whiting. “Well an anonymous Veteran called me and wanted 19 classroom flags; well he paid for them. I got the flags, and it ended up we needed 20, so we thought it would be a good project for our Honor Corps to take on and each year donate to a school a classroom flag for each school in Pocahontas County.”

With that in mind, the Honor Corps went into action.

“We raised some funds and with a grant from the Snowshoe Foundation, we were able to by flags for all the classrooms in Pocahontas County, which was a total of 108,” says Whiting. “We will give the Board of Education one which is a total of 109 total flags for the county.”

“We’ve been very receptive in the schools, and we’re proud of our teachers, proud of our parents. We have a fine group of youth out there, and that’s one of the things the Honor Corps is all about. We’re Veterans serving Veterans, our youth and our community.”

Whiting says they completed the task of getting the flags in the schools last week, wrapping up the project at the high school. He says those in the Honor Corps are special.

“The Honor Corps is a special breed of Veterans, we dedicate all this time and everything; we are not reimbursed any kind of funds or anything, we buy our own uniforms,” he says. “And with the help of people donating to us and a grant from the Snowshoe Foundation, we make these things possible. We are not funded by any Veterans organizations; we are all members of Veterans organizations.”

“As for myself, I’m a life member of all Veterans organizations and plus I support the Wounded Warrior’ project and the Vietnam Memorial project every year. I’m pround of our Veterans, proud of all of our organizations.”

Whiting says the students appreciate what the Honor Corps is doing.

“We get hugs, we get our hands shaken,” says Whiting. “I try to take as many Veterans with me to the school so that the kids can see who we are and what we are. We’re a great bunch of guys; I can’t remember of any unit that I ever served with in the military and that was in 17 years of service that there was a more dedicated group of Veterans and we love our community and that’s why we do this. All my Veterans are out there so pat them on the back and thank them when you see them.”

Story By

Heather Niday

Heather is our Program Director and Traffic Manager. She started with Allegheny Mountain Radio as a volunteer deejay. She then joined the AMR staff in February of 2007. Heather grew up in the Richmond, Virginia, area and now lives in Arbovale, West Virginia with her husband Chuck. Heather is a wonderful flute player, and choir director for Arbovale UMC. You can hear Heather along with Chuck on Tuesday nights from 6 to 8pm as they host two hours of jazz on Something Different.

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