'We could not do this without your efforts'

The Legacy Run is about raising money for The American Legion Legacy Scholarship Fund. But on Monday, the Legacy Fund briefly took a backseat to one of the Legion’s other critical funds: Operation Comfort Warriors (OCW).

Before more than 300 Legion Riders and their passengers departed Oak Grove, Ky., they witnessed an OCW donation to the Warrior Transition Battalion (WTB) at nearby Fort Campbell. A gift of $15,000 worth of items was presented to the WTB leadership at the Valor Hall Conference and Event Center.

The donation included two NordicTrack treadmills, archery compound bows, arrows, bicycle/wheelchair racing gloves, bike helmets, stationary bike trainer blocks and three portable shelter canopy tents to provide recovering servicemembers with shaded areas. The donation also included 100 MP3 players pre-loaded with a program that will help servicemembers dealing with sleep issues to get into their REM-cycle of sleep without having to use medication.

During his tenure as national commander from 2012-13, Jim Koutz helped raise more than $1 million for OCW. He was on hand for the donation. “It’s just something we need to do to take care of our troops,” he said. “We just don’t go buy a bunch of items and take it to the troops. This is what the commanding officers at these Warrior Transition Units tell us that (recovering servicemembers) have been asking for.”

Lt. Col. Chip Finley, commander of the Fort Campbell Warrior Transition Battalion (WTB), was on hand to accept the donation. He said the approximately 250 servicemembers recovering at Fort Campbell will greatly benefit from the items.

“I greatly appreciate you guys’ efforts,” Finley said. “Roughly 85 percent of the soldiers (in the WTB) will never, ever wear a uniform when they leave our battalion. They head out as veterans to hopefully do great things. Part of that rehabilitation … are things like this (donation). With this equipment that we truly, definitely need, this will help us provide a start for them. We could not do this without your efforts and your contributions.”

Brian Keller, the state sergeant-at-arms for the Department of Missouri’s Legion Riders and a member of Sons of The American Legion Squadron 347, helped OCW coordinator Bruce Drake pack up the equipment and deliver it to Valor Hall.

“It shows how much we support them (and) how much we want them to get better to proceed with their healing,” Keller said of the donation. “These are tools to help them do it. This is the whole reason I joined (the SAL): to give back. I wasn’t a warrior. I was looking for my way to give back.”