T-R PHOTO BY ROBERT MAHARRY Marshall County Veterans Affairs Director Kevin Huseboe, standing, addresses the crowd gathered for the inaugural Coffee and Camaraderie monthly event at the VFW Post 839 Hall on Tuesday morning. He estimated that between 40 and 45 people attended in total.

It was a packed house at the Harry Harter VFW Post 839 in Marshalltown on Tuesday morning for the first ever monthly “Coffee and Camaraderie” event hosted by Marshall County Veterans Affairs and led by County VA Director Kevin Huseboe.

For about two hours, the veterans in attendance, between 40 and 45 of them in all, engaged in an open conversation about struggles they’ve faced securing VA benefits and becoming service connected, the environmental dangers and toxins they were exposed during their service and other topics of general interest — including, of course, some lighthearted razzing between members of each military branch.

Huseboe, a Vietnam-era veteran himself, is passionate about ensuring that those who have served get every dollar and every possible benefit they are entitled to for taking the oath to protect their country.

“A lot of them really understand that now that not only are you fighting for yourself, you’re fighting for a loved one, you know, families and stuff. Never throw the towel in,” he said. “If you run into a stumbling block, there’s good VSOs (Veteran Service Officers) out there. Shari (Coughenour) and I are gonna fight. We’re gonna fight for you. We’re never gonna quit. We’re gonna get you taken care of. Whatever your desires are, whatever you feel you have coming to you, and as long as you have the medical evaluations and stuff, you bet, we’re gonna hang in there with you and fight it ’til the bitter end.”

Among the luminaries in attendance were Huseboe, Iowa Department of Veterans Affairs Commandant Todd Jacobus, Marshalltown Area United Way Executive Director Kendra Sorensen, Jeremy Frisbey of the Veterans Group of Iowa and Rep. Sue Cahill (D-Marshalltown), who serves on the House Veterans Affairs Committee.

“Thanks to Marshall County Veterans Service Office staff, Kevin Huseboe and Shari Coughenour, for organizing the Coffee & Camaraderie program, VFW Post 839 for hosting, and more than 40 attendees for making this a great event,” Jacobus said. “It is helpful to come together, talk about our lives, challenges, and how we can help each other, and today’s event was a great example of that.”

Jacobus added that he has attended at least a half dozen similar events in the almost two years since he took on his current position and had never seen such a large crowd assembled. Jeremy Frisbey of Waterloo, who served 26 years in the Navy before retiring, is the founder of the Veterans Group of Iowa and has helped to organize several Coffee and Camaraderie groups, including the one that met in Marshalltown on Tuesday.

“It’s very beneficial, and it was a great conversation today. It’s gonna gain momentum and move forward, and they’re gonna move it to different spots, which is great,” Frisbey said.

Frisbey said Huseboe and his colleague Shari Coughenour reached out about laying the groundwork for the gathering, and they met to establish the basic guidelines and discuss their goals. Frisbey has led events in Des Moines, Minnesota and Fort Dodge, and he is planning another one in Greenfield on Saturday aimed at assisting veterans affected by the devastating tornado there.

Other topics of conversation Frisbey noted included female veterans not always feeling like they receive the same level of respect as their male counterparts, recent happenings at the Iowa Veterans Home and other resources available to those who have served.

“There’s tons of resources for veterans out there, right? But they don’t know what they are and where they’re at and how to contact them,” Frisbey said. “Me personally, I try to be a facilitator in that. I try to say ‘You can call me, and I can try to help you out.’ I’m the BJ Armstrong of veterans issues.”

Kris Jones, a Marine Corps veteran who served for six years and also hails from Waterloo, worked with Frisbey, Huseboe and Coughenour to arrange the get together, and he said the main objective was simply to help veterans gain more knowledge and foster a sense of community through group outings like bowling and picnics, to name a few.

“We don’t just want the (Veteran Service Officers). We want other resources like hunting, fishing, whatever we can bring to light so these veterans are aware of what’s going on in their community,” Jones said. “There’s a lot of things that go on that they’re ignorant about, and we want to make sure we change that as best as possible.”

Jones was especially touched by his interaction with the wife of a veteran who said her husband doesn’t get out too often but talked and engaged in a way that she hadn’t seen for some time when he attended yesterday’s event.

“Hearing that, it just makes it all worthwhile because you want people to be able to get out, interact and feel like they still have life left in them, not that they have to isolate or anything like that. It was a win,” he said. “It was very good… I’m a little tired and weary, but I’m energized by the potential and the lives we might touch. And as you’re back there, you can see all the people that were engaged. That’s what tells me it was a beneficial event.”

The next regular monthly Coffee and Camaraderie will be held Tuesday, Sept. 3 from 7:30 to 10:30 a.m. at the VFW Hall at 107 E. Meadow Ln. In addition, a separate event will be held at IVH on Friday, Sept. 6, with the time and exact location on the campus yet to be announced.

In addition to the regularly scheduled Coffee and Camaraderie, which will always feature a different guest speaker, Huseboe is hoping to set up some evening events and rotate them between Marshall County’s public parks with the specific goal of reaching younger veterans who may need to be at work in the morning.

“This venue belongs to every veteran that was there. It’s their venue for them to visit, talk with other veterans, discuss things, you know, just hash out different things. It’s a camaraderie thing. Just speak freely. There’s nobody pushing anything. Nobody’s held to anything,” he said. “It’s just an informal meeting where everybody gets to talk, visit, you know, joke around, get serious. Have a meltdown if you want, you know, and cry about something if you lost a loved one because they weren’t taken care of and they were told horrible things and lies and misinformation, and (work on) fixing all the misinformation that’s floating around the world about VA. And (we’re focused on) just getting those things corrected and getting people’s lives back on track.”