VVA Chapter 1069 Vice-President (and previous President), Leonard Sternadel (photo below), received the "National VVA Achievement Award", which is VVA's 2nd highest Award given out to its membership. The announcment was made at the October 2019 VVA Texas State Council meeting, by Kerwin Stone, President of the TSC. President Stone's personal award nomination remarks are shown below.
"As a founding member of Chapter 1069, Leonard has been a steady, reliable and forceful voice for Vietnam veterans in Texas. Often at his own expense, Leonard has provided places for the chapter to meet, along with funding to support chapter activities. As President of his chapter, Leonard has ensured that the chapter stays focused on providing assistance to all veterans in need; he personally took charge of his chapter's relief efforts following Hurricane Harvey in 2017. A long-time delegate to the Texas State Council, Leonard proudly reports on all of the good works in which his chapter members have been involved. He also designed a chapter uniform vest & cap to give his members a readily identifiable look." Kerwin B. Stone
The award includes a certificate signed by the VVA National's President, John Rowan, along with the Achievement Medal itself. See images below.
Nomination for this award can only be done by either a chapter president or a state council president, with review and approval by VVA National's Awards Committee, and signed off by the VVA National's President, John Rowan.
Leonard Sternadel (of El Campo) was a co-founder of VVA Chapter 1069 (chartered in 2012 - El Campo, Tx), and had been the chapter's only President up until January of 2019. Over the past years, besides dedicating many hours to our VVA chapter, Leonard has been involved with other various local veterans chapters in Wharton County, including membership in the American Legion, VFW, DAV and a local veterans support organization, titled "Everyday Heroes". The latter organization in which he is heavily involved, Everyday Heroes, provides free daily bus rides for veterans to and from the VA facilities in Richmond/Rosenberg and Houston. Everyday Heroes also provides electric scooter chairs for those local veterans who are in need of them.
The past years, Leonard has also been instrumental in ensuring that Wharton County has the best Veteran Service Office facilities in place, along with making sure the best qualified Service Officer and aids are on staff. There are also many other instances of Leonard reaching out to help local veterans with various issues they may have.
Leonard's military experience includes 26 years in the US Army, with overseas assignments in Germany, Alaska, Hawaii, Japan, and Thailand. He retired in 1995 as an Infantry Sergeant Major and has since been involved in helping veterans.
VVA Chapter 1069 officers & BOD and membership, want to congratulate Leonard on receiving this award - IT IS WELL DESERVED!
VVA Chapter 1069 would like to thank the VVA National Awards Committee and to VVA President John Rowan, for recognizing the accomplishments and achievements of Vietnam Veteran Leonard Sternadel that were presented to them (in the nomination), and for their approval of his receiving this Award.
The chapter would also like to thank Kerwin Stone, President of our Texas State Council, for nominating Leonard for this award and then announcing the presentation of the award to Leonard at the October 2019 TSC meeting, held in Allen, Texas.
And as a reminder, this is not Leonard's first major recognition for his service to Veterans. In 2018 the local Wharton County "Daughters of the American Revolution Society (DARS)" organization, nominated Leonard for their "Texas Outstanding Veteran Volunteer Award". And before the dust had settled, and within a couple of weeks, Leonard had won the DARS District, State and Region Awards for being the "Texas Outstanding Veteran Volunteer" of the year! The DARS State Award Medal is shown below.
Use the links below to read more about the DARS Awards presented to Leonard in our chapter meeting reports for April & March of 2018. Included are photos of Leonard being presented with the Region Award in San Antonio.
CLICK HERE to read about Leonard's DARS District & State Awards CLICK HERE to read about Leonard's DARS Regional AwardFor those who may be interested in knowing what variety of awards VVA National does provide for the membership, use the link below to read a recent article that was written for the March/April 2019 issue of "The VVA Veteran" publication. The article was titled; "Clebrating Our Own - VVA's Awards Program". The article lists and describes the various awards and includes the required nomination criteria for each one.
CLICK HERE to read the article