Story #2: How did we get started? It began with one resident of a nursing home. Post Commander, Dale Hill went to visit a veteran who was being placed in hospice care. The following week, Dale invited his 1st Vice Commander, Patrick Branco, to join him in another visit to this veteran. They went together and met with the veteran, his wife and their son. The veteran told stories of his military career, which consisted of playing baseball in Germany full-time. His duty was public relations and ambassadorship of goodwill centering around baseball. He loved the duty and excelled at it.
Dale met him when the Legion was asked to find a veteran to raise the flag at a Minnesota Twins baseball game. One week later, Dale and Pat went to a pinning ceremony by the hospice team of a local hospital in Sioux Falls. The pinning ceremony was a celebration of his life as a proud veteran, and many members of his family were in attendance with folks he had known over the years. Two days later he passed away with his friends and family close by. This veteran enjoyed the connection between his past and the camaraderie of our American Legion leaders.

Story #3: Sometimes in our Round Robin approach to storytelling and memory sparking, we get a story that just causes us all to burst out laughing. For example, one veteran was talking about his time serving as a physician. The military had assisted with his medical school costs in exchange for a period of service. He went into a residency training program to become an anesthesiologist. He served for many years and finally retired. He then experienced an epiphany in his life and decided to go into the seminary to become a Catholic priest. He stated that it probably seemed unusual to all of us listening to life stories, but then he explained that while he was an anesthesiologist in the military he would put one person to sleep at a time; however, as a Catholic priest he could put many people to sleep at once with his sermons!

https://www.legiontown.org/other/14839/veteran-visit-program