The first woman to lead the Falls Church post of the Veterans of Foreign Wars has been elected to serve the office for the coming year.
Heather Lampkin, a former Marine, has been elected commander of VFW Post 9274 for the term beginning June 1 and is emphatic that “it’s not about me, but it’s about serving veterans.
“The VFW has always drawn me in because of my dad,” she said, “and I think of that and helping serve the veterans. To give them a place where they can go where they may not fit in other places, but at the VFW, we share a sense of community and camaraderie.
“My goal is to create that kind of environment and a place where we can feel like family,” she said in a telephone interview.
Lampkin grew up with a sense of duty and purpose “to do something to help the greater good,” following in the footsteps of her father who served in Vietnam and her grandfather in World War II.
In her small hometown in northeast Texas, she observed how much the VFW meant to her dad “who left a piece of himself in Vietnam.”
When they were children, he would take her and her sister to family friendly events at the VFW where she “could just see what [the VFW] did for him, giving him a sense of belonging and boosting his morale, being around people of similar mindsets.”
Lampkin was only a sixth grader when the tragedy struck on 9/11. When she graduated from high school, she joined the Marines, never giving a thought to any other military branch because the Marines “spoke to me.”
She spent three months in boot camp at Parris Island, S.C. known for its treacherous environmental conditions, like high temperatures, humidity, and “sand fleas” not to mention the renowned Marine training, but she soldiered through, serving three deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan and other places in the Middle East.
When she later came to this area for her assignment at the Marine base at Quantico, the size and traffic in Northern VIrginia and “moving to the big city” made her feel “a little uncomfortable. It was a very different environment,” from what she knew, but the allure and magnetism of the Little City where she visited friends, made an impact and it was almost love at first sight, including the VFW building which, once she spied it on Shreve Road, took only two days for her to join after she moved here.
In 2015 she left northern Virginia for Camp Pendleton, CA, her last post and her exit two years later from active military service as a staff sergeant. Returning to this area, she resumed college at George Mason University where she got her degree in criminology and now works for the State Department.
The Falls Church VFW will participate in the city’s Memorial Day parade on May 26, handing out flags and hosting an open house for the community at the Shreve Road post from 4 to 10 p.m. with yard games, activities for children, hot dogs and hamburgers.
There is no charge.
The VFW is a non-profit organization which receives funding from rentals of the post facility for parties, weddings, baby showers and other special events, and it is the home of the “canteen” on Tuesdays through Sundays since “veterans have still got to have their Bud Lights,” Lampkin laughed. The VFW is always open to the community, she emphasized.
She credited the VFW Auxiliary for its hours devoted to the organization, helping attract members and families, hosting Christmas parties, making cookies and other treats, and inviting Santa Claus to come for a visit, among many activities the auxiliary performs.
Membership in the VFW is limited to those who have served the military overseas while the auxiliary is open to most relatives of a qualifying veteran.
The post’s website gives a brief history of the VFW which “was founded in 1899 to assist the neglected veterans of the Spanish-American War. Membership grew to 5,000 by 1915, 200,000 by 1936, and to over 1.5 million by today. Now there are some 9,000 posts in the nation and more than 200 in Virginia.”
The Falls Church post was chartered in 1947 and named the Martin Leppert Sipes Post in honor of four soldiers killed in action during World War II: R. Jacques Martin, US Navy, killed when torpedoed off Iceland; his brother, Paul F. Martin, US Army, killed in France; Norman E. Leppert, US Marine Corps, killed in the South Pacific and James E. Sipes, US Navy, killed in the Western Pacific.
“It’s important to make sure that Memorial Day is focused on remembering all the veterans who gave the ultimate sacrifice,’’ Lampkin said. “We’re here to remember what this holiday is all about.”
VFW Post, 7118 Shreve Road, Falls Church 22043. Ph. 703-241-9274. vfwpost9274.org
