This presentation will feature local veterans, including leaders and members with Vancouver’s Community Military Appreciation Committee (CMAC). Speakers will reflect on their military service, life since retiring from military service, and the meaning and personal significance of Veterans Day. Area veterans are encouraged to attend and share their own thoughts on Veterans Day during the audience discussion following the panel presentation.

In addition to Patrick Locke and Richard McHugh, who each served tours in Vietnam, the panel will also include CMAC board member Sean Gibson.

Gibson, who grew up in Bethel, Alaska, enlisted in the Marine Corps Reserves in 1988 as an infantryman, then earned his commission in 1990. He served for six years as an infantry officer with deployments to the Middle East, Okinawa, and the Western Pacific, and as a recruit training supervisor and operations officer. For the last 20 years of his career, Gibson served as a public affairs officer in a variety of assignments in the United States with deployments to Kuwait and Iraq. He retired in 2016 from Marine Corps Headquarters in Washington, D.C., then immediately put the Pentagon in his rearview mirror to drive west and settle with his wife and son in Vancouver.

The CCHM First Thursday Speaker Series is sponsored by the Clark County Historic Preservation Commission. General admission is $5; seniors and students are $4; children under 18 are $3; and the evening is free for veterans, active-duty military personnel and their families, and CCHM members. Attendees are encouraged to arrive early, as it is first-come, first-served seating.

For more information, contact the museum at 360-993-5679 or events@cchmuseum.org.