It was actually a few days before Veterans Day, but American Legion Post 177 and VFW Post 8469 celebrated the day of remembrance on Saturday, Nov. 7 in Fairfax. Veterans shared war stories as Boy Scouts listened in awe, old friends greeted each other and the fallen were remembered.

“This is important because many of us feel Veterans Day has been taken over by mattress sales and other commercialism and is considered just a day off from work or school,” said Vietnam-era Army vet Jon Banks, of the City of Fairfax. “We want to refocus it on those who died and the reason for the day — honoring veterans.”

He was one of 12 members of the American Legion Riders of Fairfax Post 177 attending Saturday’s event at that post. The group promotes community service, does charity rides and supports Little League teams and local military families.

Its signature ride is the American Legion Legacy Scholarship Run, each August, to raise money for children whose active-duty parents died since the start of the first Gulf War. Nationwide, this event has raised $1.3 million in the past four years.

“We’ve got several World War II veterans at this post, which honors Korean, World War II and Vietnam vets and all those who’ve served or died for their country,” said Riders member Dennis Wilson of Fairfax. His wife Cindy, the group’s only female veteran, served in the Navy during the Vietnam War.

“I’m proud to be a veteran because I know in my heart that I went and defended my country and did what I had to do, for seven years,” she said. “And I wouldn’t trade those years for love, nor money. It was the best experience of my life.”

Cindy Wilson was a firefighter with Crash and Rescue. “When planes crashed, we’d try to rescue the pilot and put out the fire,” she said. “I was one of only three women in the whole U.S. Navy, at the time, to go into a man’s field. We started breaking the barrier for women to be able to do what they do now, and I’m proud of that.”

Both Bob Sussan, commander of American Legion Post 177 of Fairfax, and Floyd Houston, commander of VFW Post 8469 of Fairfax Station, were on hand for Saturday’s festivities. “Eighty percent of our members belong to both posts and our roots are here in the city,” said Houston.

“We have similar goals and purposes,” said Sussan. “We take care of veterans and their families, whether the issue is homelessness, medication, getting veterans to the VA [Veterans Administration], sending things to troops overseas or visiting VA hospitals and nursing homes.”

The two posts also sponsor Little League teams, Boys State programs, Scouting groups and the Civil Air Patrol and funds four ROTC scholarships at GMU. “So we do a lot of community outreach,” said Sussan.

Saturday’s event included historic displays of military weapons, equipment and documents, plus a formal retirement and disposal of old American flags. Students in local color guards paraded before the crowd, and area residents got the opportunity to chat with war veterans and learn their stories.

In one case, one veteran in attendance had liberated another veteran at the end of World War II. Jerry Wolf of Springfield was an Army Air Corps B-17 top-turret gunner who was shot down in 1944 and imprisoned in Germany. Carl Hall of Arlington was an Army scout with the 99th Infantry division and, on April 29, 1945, his regiment drove the Germans away from the gate at Moosburg prison in Bavaria, Germany, where Wolf was being held.

“Carl continued the attack, another regiment came into the prison camp and Jerry was liberated,” said Houston. “Later on, Carl became the dean of an engineering school and Jerry became a professional in the Army Materiel Command. But they didn’t know about each other until we started researching their histories. They learned of each other around the last Fourth of July.”

“They’ve both been in the same [veterans] post here for five years, but didn’t know [how their paths had crossed in World War II],” said Houston. “Some 60,000 POWs, 9,000 of those were Americans, and what are the odds, 64 years later, that they’d be in the same post?”

Another proud veteran at Saturday’s event was Dick Holt, 87, of Fair Oaks. Serving with the 84th Army, 335th Infantry division in World War II, he showed his heroism while being a scout in Germany in 1944.

“I was in a foxhole in no man’s land, and along came a German patrol,” said Holt. “So I popped out, captured the first guy, disarmed him and told him he was a POW. Speaking in my high-school French, I asked him if any others wanted to give up, and I asked him to bring them back and also to give me a German pistol. He came back with three more people and the pistol.”

For his bravery, Holt was later promoted from private to staff sergeant and received a bronze star for holding off a line of German soldiers with a Browning automatic rifle and an M-1 rifle.

The incident occurred about a week before the infamous Battle of the Bulge began on Dec. 16, 1944. That battle was still raging in January 1945 when Holt sustained a serious head injury. But he avoided a fatal heart injury thanks to his money belt, which he was wearing folded up four times across his chest.

“A bullet went through it, but didn’t get to my heart,” Holt said. He later received the Purple Heart but, to this day, he still has shrapnel in his back and a steel plate in his head. He displayed the bullet-torn money belt at Saturday’s event.

The war also led him to something happier — his wife, whom he’d met in Holland before he was injured. “She wrote to me while I was recovering at home, in the hospital, for six months,” he said. “I’d lost my speech and memory so, at first, my mother answered the letters. After more than a year, I was able to write to her.”

The couple corresponded for six years, until 1951, when Holt went to Holland and married her on the Fourth of July. “I’d sent her my Purple Heart as an engagement ring, and she accepted,” said Holt. “She died, 3 1/2 years ago, but we were married almost 55 years.”

Shortly after he related his story, the official Veterans Day ceremony began outside the post. Addressing the crowd, which included Del. David Bulova (D-37), Houston said, “Today we recognize our living veterans and the history they made, while dedicating ourselves to live the lives we were meant to live, to honor our fallen.”