Stan Chabal honored by veterans commission

    Stan Chabal was honored Thursday afternoon for his 45 years of service on the Washington County Commission of Veteran Affairs. Chabal has announced that he will retire at the end of his current term. The Veteran Affairs Commission honored Chabal with a retirement party near the bandstand in Central Park during the Farmers market.

    The two other commissioners, Terry Philips and Jeffrey Johnston, spoke at the event about the work Chabal has done for veterans. Johnston also thanked Chabal?s wife Martha for ?putting up with him? for all that time. Washington County Board of Supervisors Chairman Jim Miksch and County Veterans Service Officer Sue Rich shared their thoughts about Chabal and what he has meant for the commission. After the speeches, a cake with the words ?Thank You Stan? written in frosting was served to the retirement party guests.       

    After the ceremony, Philips said that it has been a pleasure to serve on the commission alongside Chabal.

    ?Stan has always been great to work with,? said Philips. ?We?re going to lose Stan?s perspective on how things were 40 years ago, which gives us insight into how the commission has changed. He is always agreeable. He is always there asking nice questions. You think someone at 90 years old would just be coasting, but Stan is not. I keep thinking I?m going to get ahead of him, but I don?t. Veterans couldn?t have a stronger advocate than Stan Chabal.?

    Chabal joined the commission in 1965, and at that time it was known as the Soldiers? Relief Commission. He remembers that the commission was run very differently than it is today.

    ?We had a very small budget when I joined, and things have changed a lot since then,? said Chabal. ?We didn?t go much into medicine then. We didn?t have an office at that time, either.?

    The Veteran Affairs Commission did not recruit as actively at that time as they do now, said Chabal.

    ?We didn?t push people to come see us,? said Chabal. ?We weren?t scouring the country looking for veterans. The help was there if they wanted it. Most of them knew we were there for them and that they just had to come see one of us.?

    Chabal remarked that veteran assistance programs were not as prevalent in the early part of the 20th century as they are in the 21st century.

    ?In the 1920s, after World War I, there was nothing for the veterans to do. They couldn?t get jobs or anything,? said Chabal. ?Back then, there were not very many government programs. Now we have a bunch of them, and they help the veterans out with emergencies.?

For more, see our June 18 print edition.