Member Activities

Member’s photos from Special Forces Association activities and other veteran/military related events.

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Our First Team House is Open

Thanks to the generosity and comradery of American Legion Post 282, 100 Ecorse Road, Ypsilanti, MI 48197, Our chapter has its first team house!

All chapter members are invited to use the Safe House just as if they belonged to the post. As a courtesy, if you are a member of an American Legion Post anywhere, please sign the guest registry with your native post number. If you are not a member of an American Legion post, you will be considered a guest of a post member. Please thank them for their invitation after you sign in as a guest. (It is not a requirement, but they would not mind if you consider becoming a member of your local post).

Our opening ceremony was conducted by Vice President Richard Smith, assisted by Luker and by Tammy out Post 282 host for the event. After our brief ceremony, those present enjoyed a social hour.

Please enjoy the following pictures.

2019 Holiday Dinner and Dance Meeting

Bill Schrader did it again! He set up a great dinner dance and Winter Meeting, held at Comfort Suites Grand Rapids North on 12 January 2019.

We had some sad news to start the new year. We hope all of our members and families never get old or have health issues, but we are realistic enough to know that is not how life works. So, we all resolve to keep moving and to keep making the best choices we can. We wish you the best health and speedy recovery to the greatest extent possible.

This year, we thank our past President, Dave Fetters, for fourteen years of service as President. He leaves big shoes to fill, but we swore in Kirk Newman, with confidence that he will be able to lead us into the future.

Please enjoy the following pictures.

2018 Holiday Dinner and Dance Meeting

What a great way to start a new year: hanging out with your Special Forces Family, over great food, good music and dancing! As these pictures below show, there was plenty of good food and good spirits to go around. The event was held at the Cpl Walter F Bruce VFW Post in St. Clair Shores. Richard Smith was our host. The food was catered because we were tired of eating Richard’s rattlesnake stew.

Our first meeting of the year also went well.

As usual, if you missed this day, you missed something good.

Helping Build Southeast Asia’s Future

At age 75, Max Lund is still applying lessons in Southeast Asia he first learned as an Army officer in Vietnam a half a century ago.

Many of the people Lund works with are Montagnards, an ethnically distinct minority he first encountered in Vietnam’s Central Highlands, where he was assigned as part of the Phoenix Program to blunt the incursion of the Viet Cong.

Lund was 25 when he first met the Montagnards. “One of the things that struck us was how easygoing and happy the Montagnards were, even though they had to deal with all kinds of hardship,” Lund says. “I was impressed by the sophistication of these supposedly primiitive people.”

For more than a decade, Daniels has been licensed by the Cambodian government to provide education to Montagnard young people and other disadvantaged youth in the nation’s northeast provinces, where many had fled to escape repression in Vietnam. What had begun in 2003 as a projet to help minority students attend high school has evolved into a scholarship program to send high school students to college.

In one province, recent graduates include teachers, a nurse, and a midwife who cooperates with Khmer medical staffers. Others work as a veterinary technician and a business graduate with a company specializing in microloans to subsistence farmers. Others who served in Vietnam have joined the program. “We’re a conduit for veterans trying to do something,” Lund says.

Kirk Newman presents flag to Clay Curtis' daughter. Richard Monroe is on the left and provided the Marine color guard.

2018 Spring Meeting

Our Spring meeting was well attended. We were hosted by Tim Leahy at Milford American Legion Post 216. While we discussed weighty subjects, such as finding a replacement for our long-standing President for Life, Dave Fetters, and best practices for going forward with our scholarship program, we found plenty of time for laughter, discovering and responding to each other’s health concerns, and catching up on the latest news from friends, family and members.

If you weren’t there, you missed more than words can describe. It’s family.

2018 Holiday Dinner and Meeting

We were blessed to have a great day for our Annual Meeting, live auction and 2018 Holiday Dinner. The weather kept a few people away, but attendance was still good and the joy was plentiful. It was especially good to see Bob Slivatz back on his feet. Richard and Alicia Smith surprised Big Vinnie’s wife Elisha with a cake to help celebrate her 50th birthday.

Clay Curtis Funeral

Kirk Newman presents flag to Clay Curtis' daughter. Richard Monroe is on the left and provided the Marine color guard.

2017 National Convention

Don Bruce, Kirk, Tammy and Barb

Trudy, Dave, Tammy, Kirk, Al Motos, with wife, Maria, at Sicliy DZ. Al and Kirk served together.

Norm and Billy, originally from Michigan, with Kirk and Dave

Dave and Sally

Dave with Chuck Pesta, who, we discovered, worked with Dave’s brother for 30 years at Anheiser-Busch

Jason Schrader, Dave, Bill and Kirk at the banquet

Tammy and Kirk looking good

Trudy and Dave prior to the banquet

Trudy having 18 Delta, Mark Osborn, removing stiches from her nose.

At the picnic, Dave reminds Trudy that he knows his place.

Alicia and Dave during hotel fire alarm

Tibor Bierbaum, Trudy, Dave, Alicia and Richard

Kirk Newman with his friend, Tammy, at Sicily DZ

Dave, SF E-8 Ed Ubinas, Kirk at the PX on Flag Day.

Here is a project Dave Fetters just finished. He began with brass casings to which he added lead shot and sand. He then made projectiles to fit. The reproductions are (left to right) 30mm, 308, 50 cal, 30mm.

Amazing. The GAU-8/A 30mm Gatling gun in the A-10 Thunderbolt can send 3,900 of those things toward a target in a mere 60 seconds.

Jan 2017 – Alicia Smith and a friend were invited to the 45th President’s Inauguration.

Here they are, in front of the Capitol

They found some SF guys

Spring Meeting and Christmas Party – 7 January 2017

John and Kathy Sosa

First Lady, Trudy Fetters with Tibor Bierbaum

Duane and Regina Daniels

Duane and Regina Guset

Richard and Alicia Smith

President For Life Dave Fetters with alias in background

Harry Smith and Franchett Bartlett

L-R: President Fetters, Vice President Sherd, Treasurer Reyes and Gloria Reyes

Iriash Palmer

President Fetters with Past President Laguire-Quinn

President Fetters with Past Presidents Frazer and Schrader

Treasurer Reyes wondering if I’ve paid my dues yet.

Oct 2015 Meeting – Lee & Bill Schrader

Oct 2015 Meeting – Guest Joe Sennabaum, Mike Jaciuk, Vincent E. & son Vincent D. Messina

Oct 2015 Meeting – Kirk in his new period perfect Tigers with host Dewey

Oct 2015 Meeting – Dave Fetters, Dewey, Kirk, Rich Smith “Good scotch!”

2015 Oct Meeting – Ballad of the Green Berets on horn by Mark Kincaid

2015 Oct Meeting – Kirk & Tim Leahy – maybe too much scotch!

5th SFG Reunion 2015- Dave Fetters & Steve Frazer at the indoor firing range

5th SFG Reunion 2015- George & Sally Sternberg, Dave Fetters, and Steve Frazer at the end of the table at the picnic

5th SFG Reunion 2015- Self explanatory!

Summer Campout 2015

Summer Campout 2015

Summer Campout 2015

Summer Campout 2015

Summer Campout 2015

Canadian Airborne Forces Association Chapter 17 on May 3, 2015 in Trenton, Canada left to right: Angelo DiLiberti. James Reppke. Dr Ed Hirsch. Mark Kincaid. Frank Burns. Richard Smith. Paul Scwimmer. Harry Smith. John Sosa. Andrew Brown. Joe Clyburn. James Jackson.

Special Forces Breakfast in Livonia, Michigan. Left side: Joe Clyburn. James Jackson. Richard Smith. Mark Kincaid. Bob Slivatz. Right side: Andrew Brown. Dr. Ed Hirsch. Herman Kasoff. Frank Burns. Harry Smith. John Sosa.