Today, we are here to honor and award Mr. Gale Russell Cornine HIS Quilt of Valor. But first, we want to give you some background on the Quilt of Valor itself. In 2003, the founder of the Quilts of Valor Foundation, Catherine Roberts, had a dream. Her son, Nat, was deployed in Eh-rock. According to Catherine, she saw a young man sitting on the side of his bed in the middle of the night, hunched over. The feeling was one of utter despair. She could see his war demons clustered around, dragging him down. Then, as if viewing a movie, she saw him wrapped in a quilt. His whole demeanor changed from one of despair to one of hope and well being. The message from her dream was one of healing. The model was simple: have a volunteer team who would donate their time and materials to make a quilt. Some would piece and others would quilt. She saw the name for this special quilt to be a Quilt of Valor.
From the beginning, Catherine had definite ideas about standards of excellence for Quilts of Valor. She knew they had made to be made with quality fabric, quilted and not hand-tied, and they would be “awarded” not just passed out. A Quilt of Valor would say, “Thank you for your service, sacrifice, and valor in serving our nation its time of need.
“The mission of the Quilts of Valor Foundation is to cover service members and veterans who have been touched by war with comforting and healing Quilts of Valor. We, our our guild, support this mission and honor our recipients in the same manner.” Your quilt has a label that tells you who made it and when and where you received it. Future generations will know what you did. To date, 320,000+ Quilts of Valor have been awarded and today we will add another And now, before we award the quilt, it is my honor to share a bit about Mr. Cornine.
Gale Russell Cornine entered the Army on May 15, 1968 and attained the rank of E-5 by the time of his honorable discharge on May 15, 1970. We was stationed at Fort Hood, TX, Fort Lenard Wood, MO, and served in Vietnam. How many duties included working with tank-armor vehicles, M60 machine guns, light wheel vehicles and was a runner for the company commander He is proud to say that he did his job at all times.
Gale says it was a very serious time of learning in his life. He was 19 years old and drafted as many were in the Vietnam era. He had never been away from home. However, he learned so much about other people and differences in attitudes.
He would trade these learning opportunities for anything. When he returned home, he worked construction in Kansas City and surrounding areas.
Gale was awarded the Good Conduct Medal and the National Defense Service Medal. He was also second runner up Soldier of the Quarter in 1970 at Fort Hood.
And now, Gale, we are honored to award and wrap you in your Quilt of Valor and say thank you for your service to our country in its time of need.