SAN ANTONIO – (Oct. 25, 2024) – Being visible in the community is one of the many goals of Fred Brock American Legion Post 828.
Being visible is important for many reasons, which include building trust, sharing information, promoting positivity, inspiring confidence and attracting members, to list a few.
On Oct. 17, Post Commander Burrell Parmer, joined by sailors assigned throughout Joint Base San Antonio (JBSA) and Navy veterans, gathered at Municipal Plaza during a City Council session to honor the Navy’s 249th birthday with a traditional cake-cutting.
The Hon. Ron Nirenberg, mayor of San Antonio, provided a brief history of the Navy and thanked the sailors and city employees who served in the Navy.
The city sponsors and participates in multiple military-recognition events throughout the year. This includes birthday cake-cutting ceremonies for each of the military services.
Later that evening, Parmer attended the 2024 Heroes of Military Medicine San Antonio Awards program hosted by the Henry M. Jackson Foundation for the Advancement of Military Medicine, Inc. (HJF) at the Red Berry Estate.
The event, in its third year, provided an opportunity to celebrate the Department of Defense (DoD) public-private partnerships within the city by recognizing five honorees and their selfless dedication to serving the nation’s wounded, ill and injured military servicemembers.
Toward the conclusion of the program, attendees heard remarks from Legionnaire and Marine Corps Lt. Gen. Benjamin Watson, commanding general, Training and Education Command (TECOM), who served as the tribute speaker for Reyes.
Reyes, of Oxon Hill, Md., was an observer/aerial gunner on a MV-22 Osprey training flight that crashed on the Tiwi Islands off the coast of Darwin, Australia on Aug. 27, 2023. Requiring immediate intensive care, he was treated at Royal Darwin Hospital and subsequently transferred to the Alfred Hospital in Melbourne, Australia, where he spent approximately two months in the intensive care unit.
In a groundbreaking effort, DoD's only Extracorporeal Membrane Oxygenation (ECMO) team collaborated with the U.S. Army Institute of Surgical Research (USAISR) Burn Center to orchestrate a complex retrieval mission to bring Reyes to BAMC once he was in better condition. This mission was the longest ECMO retrieval in history and marked the first ECMO unit circuit change performed in a moving aircraft.
