Celebrating 100 years with 100 veterans of the Big Red One.

One hundred veterans have been invited to attend the Thursday, June 22nd Military Affairs Council (MAC) Breakfast at the Geary County Convention Center in Junction City.

Ret. Col. John Seitz, MAC Director, said that the veterans that have been invited are part of the What is your Big Red One Story series completed by Mayor Phyllis Fitzgerald.

“All of those [stories] that were in the paper are combined now into a book, and each of the people who were written about will have a book with all of those stories in it,” said Seitz. “Several copies of the book will be autographed so they can be put in the museum, and the library and places like that.”

The stories were published in the Fort Riley Post as well as the local newspaper.

Seitz said that Junction City is the hometown of the First Infantry Division. “This is a part of Junction City showing its support of the 100th anniversary of the Big Red One.”

Over 75 of the veterans who were featured in the stories have RSVP’d for the breakfast. Seitz expects the MAC breakfast attendance to reach capacity.

“We’ve never had this many people before; we’re capped at 250 and we’ll probably have 250 because we’ll have some walk-ins, we always do.”

Various veterans’ stories and photos will be on display around the room, and three veterans have been asked to speak about their time serving with the Big Red One.

The breakfast begins at 7:30 am; the cost is $12 per person, active duty service members are $10.