News : Veterans\' organization history: AMVETS 218 honors two female vets with new name

AMVETS Post 218 has been renamed to honor two female vets: Marion Gualtier & Phyllis Kulaszewski.

John Gualtier and Karen Miller cut the cake in honor of Marion Gualtier and Phyllis Kulaszewski.

AMVETS applaud the new plaque commemorating the chapter's new name.

One of the AMVETS displays includes a Christmas poem for veterans.

Member of AMVETS Post 218 celebrated their group's 10th anniversary this week by renaming the post in honor of two female World War II veterans -- Marion Gualtier and Phyllis Kulaszewski.

In doing so, the post became the first-ever AMVETS group -- and perhaps the first-ever post in any national veterans organization -- to name itself after two female veterans.

Marion Gualtier was the late wife of long-time veteran volunteer John Gualtier. She served in the US Army as a nurse during World War II; she met John while caring for him at a VA facility years after the war.

Phyllis Kulaszewski was the mother of Karen Miller, the wife of AMVETS Post commander Denny Miller. She, like Marion Gualtier, served in the U.S. Army from 1944-1945. Her job as a clerk in the Women's Army Air Corp was to help document the movement of fighter and bomber aircraft until they reached their port of embarkation. She was a charter member of the Vinton AMVETS; she died in 2011.

The members also heard a history of AMVETS, which began in 1943 and was officially chartered by Congress and President Truman in 1947.

A representative of Rep. Bruce Braley presented the post proclamations which Braley recently read on the floor of the U.S. House of Representatives. Karen Miller also read tributes to the two women.

Denny Miller said the plaque containing the names of its two female honorees will be on display during every local AMVETS meeting. The post was chartered April 28, 2003.