VET'S CLUB OFFERS SUPPORT IN TIME OF WAR.

Byline: Mark Baker The Register-Guard

An inconspicuous red-and-white bumper sticker attached to a wall mirror at Mac's at the Vet's Club says simply: "Don't let them be forgotten."

The sign refers to prisoners of war and soldiers missing in action, but it could just as well refer to all military personnel currently fighting the war in Iraq, because the Vet's Club - long a Eugene landmark resurrected last summer by Eugene brothers Pat and Bill McCallum - has no intention of forgetting

them.

The restaurant and bar at the Veterans Memorial Building wants to make a statement: Our military, and their families, matter.

Bob Dougherty, president of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 293, which owns the building along with American Legion Post 3, said people kept asking what local veterans were planning at the historic, 56-year-old building.

So Dougherty, 71, decided to do something. Beginning this Tuesday, Mac's will open its doors to those who want to support the troops. Sodas and coffee will be free, and the restaurant will feature an inexpensive dinner special, Pat McCallum said.

The informal gatherings will continue until war's end.

"It's just an opportunity for people to gather and share their comments or thoughts," McCallum said. "Regardless of what people's feelings are about the war, we are at war. And now's the time to get together and offer support. There's an awful lot of anti-(war sentiment) that goes on in this community, and we want people to know there's a place they can come that offers something different."

Posters will be available so that families can write down their enlisted loved ones' names, ranks and branches of the military. Everyone listed on the poster will be invited to a buffet dinner party after the war in the building's second-floor ballroom.

"What we want to do is just acknowledge them," McCallum said. "I'll make as many (posters) as I have to. It's hard to say how people will respond to this."

The posters say: "We salute our local brothers and sisters currently serving our country in Iraq."

No matter how many people show for that post-war event, they will get a meal, Pat McCallum said. About 300 to 400 people can be comfortably served in the ballroom, he said. "If it's 700 (people), we'll do two parties," McCallum said. "Or three parties, whatever it takes."

Part of the motivation, said Dougherty, is to avoid the "Vietnam veteran syndrome" in which many soldiers returned home to indifference or contempt.

"We want (soldiers coming home) treated like the good human beings, the brave human beings that they are," said Dougherty, who served in the U.S. Army during the Korean War and has a son who's a colonel in the Air Force.

McCallum said his soon-to-be son-in-law, Jamie Ward, is serving in the war as a Navy flight mechanic aboard the USS Abraham Lincoln.

"These are folks who live right here in the community and we need to be supportive of them."

REMEMBER THE TROOPS

When/where: This Tuesday and every Tuesday, beginning at 5 p.m., at Mac's at the Vet's Club, 1626 Willamette St. Public welcome, especially military families. Free nonalcoholic drinks; dinner special. Call 344-8600 for more information.

CAPTION(S):

N o t f o r g o t t e n Thomas Boyd / The Register-Guard Bob Dougherty, president of the Veterans Memorial Building Board (left), and Pat McCallum, who runs Mac's, will begin serving a $5 meal on Tuesday nights and then put on a free dinner for military members when they return from the war in Iraq. REMEMBER THE TROOPS When/where: This Tuesday and every Tuesday, beginning at 5 p.m., at Mac's at the Vet's Club, 1626 Willamette St. Public welcome, especially military families. Free nonalcoholic drinks; dinner special. Call 344-8600 for more information. Please turn to VETS, Page B5 Vets: As many parties as needed Continued from Page B1