Post 1336 accepting donations for community veterans monument

Donations to the Community Veterans Memorial Fund maintained by St. Juvin Post 1336 Veterans of Foreign Wars can be made at First Midwest Bank, 5 S. Kankakee St., Coal City, or to VFW Post 1336, P.O. Box 191, Coal City, IL, 60416.  Donations to the fund are maintained in a separate account and are only used for maintaining and improving the memorial.
For name placement on the Community Veteran's Memorial the following requirements must be met:
• The veteran must have served honorably in the Armed Forces of the United States including the Coast Guard or the Merchant Marine during wartime. Proof of honorable service is usually established with the veteran's DD214 or similar document.  Due to a 1973 fire at the National Military Records Center in St. Louis over 16 million records, mostly Army but some Air Force documents, were destroyed or damanged. As it may be difficult to secure the official documents, so all submitted, verifiable documents will be considered.
The veteran must satisfy one of the following residence requirements of having attended or graduated from Coal City High School, entered military service from an address in the Coal City School District or lived continuously in the Coal City School District for at least five years.
Due to space limitations only the first, middle initial and last name will be etched into the granite.  
World War II veterans can have their names engraved on the removable bars on the WWII bronze plaque. Service members who died in active duty while performing assigned military duties will have a gold star placed after their name.
Applications for name placement can be obtained at the circulation desk of the Coal City Public Library District, 85 S. Garfield St., Coal City: Coal City Village Hall, 515 S. Broadway St., and the Diamond Village Hall, 1750 E. Division St., Diamond.
Names are usually placed annually before the community Memorial Day observance. Those names are read as part of the program.
There is no charge to have the veteran's name placed on the memorial.
The first donations to the newly established monument fund were made by Coal City High School Athletic Director Dan Hutchings and those who purchased T-shirts for the school’s Military Appeciation Night held Aug. 24.