Local Heroes Need Home for VFW Post

One was shot down on his 23rd mission and held in German prison camps for over a year. He was 20 years old. Another liberated prisoners from the Dachau concentration camp, where more than 32,000 people, mostly Jews, suffered sickness, starvation, torture and execution. Still another was among the Allied troops who landed along a 50-mile stretch of the French coastline on the beaches of Normany. It was June 6, 1941: D-Day.

These American heroes and some 60 others make up the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 10350 in Lake Saint Louis. They're looking for a permanent home. Right now members meet ator the Lake St. Louis Community Association. The national VFW website lists 27 posts within about 30 miles of Lake Saint Louis. The nearest is Post 5077 in O'Fallon, which has its own hall on Veterans Memorial Parkway, where members hold meetings and host social events.

Post  10350 Commander Ralph Barrale was 19 when he left St. Louis to serve in World War II and, eventually, at Dachau.  Now 86, Barrale said he is honored to have served and proud today to be a veteran. 

"We didn't know what we were getting into—18-, 19-, 20-year-olds—when we went into Europe, until we started liberating those concentration camps," he said. "To see those people in bones. My outfit was one of the first ones into Dachau.  I saw the ovens and the skeletons. The bodies were stacked like cordwood.  We just didn't know. We didn't realize. Then we knew why we were over there."

A military policeman in the United States Army, Barrale served from 1943 to 1946 alongside Patton's 3rd Army.  He said many like him are members of the Post 10350.

"Most of us are WWII veterans. Do the math," Barrale said. "If we don't get new members and don't have a home to draw new members, this post will be gone. Who would carry on the Memorial Day services and the Veterans Day ceremonies? It would be a blow to the people of Lake Saint Louis.  And there are a lot of veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan who don't even know we exist here."

Barrale said members of the post hope that someone in Lake Saint Louis owns a building or a parcel of land the veterans might be able to call home.

"What we're looking for is someone to donate something because we don't have a treasury where we could afford to buy anything," explained.

Gene Nicholson, 85, was a Radarman 2nd Class in the United States Coast Guard during World War II. He's also a member of Post 10350.

"I served in the most underrated branch. Nobody sees us, nobody cares. We were an integral part of many, many invasions," he said.

Nicholson served on the USS Carson City in the Pacific Theater of Operations and was part of the invasion of the Philippines. He escorted troop carriers and protected convoys of supplies. Nicholson also helped train Russian sailors on his ship with one interpreter assigned to 200 men. 

Fellow Post 10350 member Emmett "Bud" Harter, 86, was a gunner in the 8th U.S. Air Force. He spent a year as a prisoner of the Third Reich in Lithuania, Poland and Germany. Freedom came when Gen. George Smith Patton and his troops rolled into the camp on April 29, 1945. 

"I got to salute him," Harter said. "To us Patton was the big dog."

Harter and nine others had been shot down over Germany and turned over to the Germans by civilian farmers. Harter said he had a rope around his neck at one point and thought he would surely die until an SS officer told the guard to remove it. Instead, he and thousands of other soldiers from all over the world were imprisoned and starved.

Another Lake Saint Louis veteran, Henry Chappell, 89, was an Army Corps Technician 4th Grade. Chappell was also on the beaches of Normandy on D-Day. 

"I couldn't see the sky for the planes that were going over us and they were bombing furiously," he recalled.

Bill Reynolds, a US Navy supply officer in Vietnam, serves as secretary and unofficial but historian of the post.  He also served in the Navy Reserve for more than thirty years.  Reynolds said the city government has been supportive of the post but has no facility or funds to offer.  

"We're just a bunch of old guys sitting in a room once a month. Sure we raise money for charity, but we could do much more if we had a building," said Reynolds.

The members of the Lake Saint Louis VFW Post 10350 meet the third Wednesday of every month. Reynolds calls it an honor just to "hang out with heroes." 

"I stand in the presence of the past when I'm in their presence," he said.

To help the members of VFW Post 10350 in their search for a facility, call Ralph Barrale at 636-332-4696 or 636-248-5680, or Bill Reynolds at 636-561-4544 or 636-795-8757.