Roanoke Times
Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: SUNDAY, March 7, 1993 TAG: 9303070096
SECTION: VIRGINIA PAGE: D-1 EDITION: METRO
SOURCE: MARY BISHOP STAFF WRITER
DATELINE: LENGTH: Medium
VETERANS' GROUP OPENS CENTER
A new Roanoke Valley post of a national Vietnam veterans' organization opened a community center in Vinton on Saturday and announced it will run a thrift store, food bank, weekend dances and other activities there.Three state legislators, the mayors of Roanoke and Vinton and other elected officials welcomed Post 11 of Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. to the former carpet store at 107 Pollard St. in Vinton.
Post Commander William "Jay" Martin, who said he served three tours of duty with the Special Forces in Vietnam, said the organization welcomes nonveterans as "associate" members as well as veterans who did not serve in Vietnam.
Robert G. Whitt Jr. of Big Stone Gap, a regional coordinator for the organization, said at the post's opening ceremonies that the national headquarters of the group are in Wilkes-Barre, Pa.
He said that it helps incarcerated veterans and the children of veterans who believe they were injured by the defoliant Agent Orange. A brochure provided at the Vinton post said that the national organization also is seeking a full accounting of Americans missing in action or held as prisoners of war in Vietnam.
In December, the Washington Post reported that Veterans of the Vietnam War Inc. was criticized by members of the U.S. Senate for raising more than $11 million with literature claiming that Vietnamese officials admitted American prisoners of war still were being held there.
The Post said that Sens. John Kerry, D-Mass., and John McCain, R-Ariz., both Vietnam veterans, said such solicitations were fraudulent because no Vietnamese officials are known to have acknowledged that Vietnam still holds American prisoners.
Whitt said that Kerry confused his organization with another on the last day of Senate hearings on the fate of missing servicemen in Southeast Asia. Whitt said that Kerry wrote the organization to apologize and he has a copy of Kerry's letter at home. As as far as he knows, Whitt said, the mistake never was reported in the news media.
His group raised $30,000 for the POW-MIA cause, not $11 million, and most of the $30,000 went to a fund-raiser, he said.
Martin said he had not heard about the fund-raising story. "I've been with this organization since 1983 and I've never heard of any black mark against it," he said.