It was a busy day at Fort Riley Wednesday as the 2nd Armored Brigade Combat Team held a combined arms live fire exercise.

Members of the area’s communities, along with the families of Soldiers at Fort Riley, were invited to watch the live exercise.

“We had tanks and Bradleys out there, we also had OH-58 Delta Kiowas flying in support to them, and we also brought in a flight of 810 Warthogs from the Air Force,” explained Major Brandon Cave with the 1-63rd Armor Battalion, 2nd ABCT.

Jim Sands, Junction City Commissioner was also in attendance and said that he loves coming out to Fort Riley to see these exercises and would come out 1oo times a year if they did them that many times a year.

Following the exercise the Manhattan Military Relations Council and the Junction City Military Affairs Council along with AUSA hosted a luncheon at the Riley’s Conference Center.

Lt. Gen. (Ret.) Michael Dodson was the guest speaker during the luncheon. Dodson is a former 1st Infantry Division Commanding General at Fort Riley.

He spoke about a number of topics including the current problems within the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. He explained the fix starts with what Congress has been working on the past few days.

“All we have to do is get this bill passed. It says if you live more than 40 miles away from one of these Veterans facilities, you can go to civilian care, much like Tri-Care works. They’ve authorized 26 new leases for medical facilities, $500 million for new Doctors and Nurses, this is a good start,” Dodson said.

An additional section to that bill would make it easier to dismiss those within the VA for failure of performance.

“We have two issues, deafness in our congress, and this lack of character by those who administrate the system. It’s been going on for to long and we need to fix it.”

After Dodson’s address Maj. Gen. Paul Funk, the Commanding General of the 1st Infantry Division, announced this years Distinguished Trooper Award recipients.

This years recipients included Junction City residents Peggy Heldstab, John Seitz, and posthumously Larry Paquette.

Both Heldstab and Seitz were humbled by the award, both saying that they believe there are others out there who deserve the award more than them.

The recipients will be formally presented their awards during the Victory Dinner Thursday night at the Riley’s Conference Center.