The Director of the Military Affairs Council for the Junction City Area Chamber of Commerce, Craig Bender, would like to see more people from Junction City on the Flint Hills Veterans Coalition. He attended a recent meeting where there were only a couple members from Geary County present. The coalition is comprised mostly of Manhattan residents.

Bender stated, “No reason why Geary County, Junction City, shouldn’t be equal partners in supporting that. So we want to reach out to our veterans organizations as well as other military support organizations to kind of get over there and be a part of it so we can help them as well as help them help us.”

Bender updated the Military Affairs Council Advisory Committee on that topic this week.

Other information was provided by different council members and staff during a meeting on Thursday.

–Fort Riley plans to send only eight runners to the Army 10-miler in Washington D.C. this fall. But there will be a contingent representing Junction City in that race. The group will include Mickey Fornaro-Dean, Jeff Underhill, Allen Dinkel, Craig Bender and Charles Stimatze.

–David Fullmer will be the new incoming Deputy Garrison Commander.

–Kevin Lambert is the new 1st Infantry Division Chief of Staff.

–Approximately 6,200 Soldiers are deployed from Fort RIley. But there should be a nearly full contingent of troops on post in October, with most of those deployed returning to Fort Riley.

–There has been some discussion about getting some World War II veterans into an Honor Flight program based out of Wamego. Through the program those veterans can travel to Washington D.C. to view the memorials there.

–There is a proposal to make Junction City a POW / MIA city. It will go to the city commission. A  number of military related events are already done in the community.

–Fort Riley Day at KSU during the upcoming Wildcat football season will be on October 5th when K-State hosts Baylor.