VETERANS DAY
A10 • HERMISTONHERALD.COM
WEDNESDAY, NOVEMBER 18, 2020
Honoring all who served
Air Force veteran shares her story with Echo students
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Echo School’s annual
Veterans Day parade may
have been canceled, but the
school kept its tradition of
making sure students heard
fi rsthand from a local vet-
eran about what it’s like to
serve in the armed forces.
This year’s keynote
speaker — whose words
were broadcast live during
a virtual assembly — was
Colleen R. Shaw Piercy,
SSgt. E-5, United States
Air Force, who served from
1995 to 2001. She talked
about the “why” of her ser-
vice to her country during
her Wednesday, Nov. 11
speech.
It started when she was
17, and saw military service
as a way to get out of “sandy,
windy” Eastern Oregon, see
the world and learn a trade.
“After I learned more
about my job and I defended
my country, my ‘why’ for
joining the armed forces
evolved and became much
more. The ultimate goal
at the end of the day was
to support and defend our
country. Being a part of the
team to protect the rights of
speech, press, petition, reli-
gion and assembly gave me
satisfaction,” she said.
Piercy described the rig-
ors of boot camp, where she
and other recruits were “bro-
ken down” and rebuilt phys-
ically and mentally. To pre-
pare them for a job where
inattention to detail could
result in lives lost, they
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
A group of Echo sixth-graders performs a song in honor of Veterans Day at a virtual assembly
on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020.
Ben Lonergan/Hermiston Herald
Colleen R. Shaw Piercy, SSgt. E-5, United States Air Force, who
served from 1995 to 2001, speaks to a virtual crowd during a
Veterans Day assembly in the Echo High School gymnasium
on Wednesday, Nov. 11, 2020.
learned to treat everything in
their life with exactness.
“Every stray string on
your clothes needed to be
clipped off. Every T-shirt
needed to be folded just
right,” she said. “I remember
taking tweezers and pulling
each little edge of the T-shirt
so it was all fl ush.”
After boot camp, Piercy
worked in space system
operations. At Schriever
Air Force Base in Colo-
rado Springs, Colorado, she
worked to launch and oper-
ate GPS satellites that the
military uses in combat and
planning, and the defense
satellites used to monitor for
missile launches and other
threats.
Her next tour was in Aus-
tralia, where she worked to
monitor and analyze data
from defense satellites.
“I was the front line
of detection of missile
launches, satellite launches
and nuclear satellites,” she
said. “I could detect what
kind of missile, where it was
originating from and where
it was heading.”
Her next work, in Spain,
was tracking “space junk”
with a high-powered tele-
scope so that military sat-
ellites could avoid a colli-
sion. Her fi nal work for the
Air Force, at Edwards Air
Force Base in California,
was classifi ed.
After an honorable dis-
charge, Piercy worked for
Boeing to help launch the
Sirius XM satellite before
family health issues brought
her back to Eastern Oregon.
She started to work for Good
Fish’n the Brave treats vets to a day on the river
By JADE MCDOWELL
NEWS EDITOR
Umatilla hosted an event
honoring veterans Saturday,
Nov. 7, with the fi fth annual
Fish’n the Brave event.
About 60 veterans, a few
with their active-duty sons
or daughters in tow, spent the
day fi shing on the Columbia
River with top-of-the line
gear and boats captained by
experienced fi shing guides.
Tony Fisher, who runs Fish-
er’s Catch Outfi tters in Ken-
newick, Washington, said
the event began fi ve years
ago when his son asked if
they could take some veter-
ans on a free trip for Veter-
ans Day.
“He said, ‘Hey Dad, I
think we should take some
veterans out,’ and I said OK
and did a Facebook post,’”
Fisher said.
The fi rst year about 12
veterans responded to the
post, and Fisher did a draw-
ing to take four of them out.
Afterward, some of his other
friends in the guide business
offered to donate their ser-
vices, and the event contin-
ued to grow, with a high of
87 veterans in 2019.
Fisher said next year he
plans to do the event on the
20th anniversary of the Sept.
11 terror attacks instead of
the Saturday before Veter-
ans Day, so that the weather
is warmer.
He said Fish’n the Brave
has become a fun way to say
thanks to people who have
served their country.
Mark Ribich/Contributed Photo
Veterans and fi shing guides
set out on a free guided
fi shing expedition on the
Columbia River on Saturday,
Nov. 7, 2020.
“It’s one of those things
to give back to veterans, to
let them know we support
them, and just let them have
some fun out on the water,”
he said.
He’s gotten good feed-
back each year, he said. Par-
ticipants range from vet-
erans whose services was
decades ago to one veteran
who had just recently got-
ten out of the hospital from
injuries sustained overseas.
With all branches of the ser-
vice mixed together at the
event, sometimes there’s a
little friendly “razzing” that
goes on between the differ-
ent branches.
A writeup of this year’s
event by Cathy Stolz, pres-
ident of American Legion
Auxiliary Unit 37 in Herm-
iston, described the scene:
“Once on the water, sea-
soned guides sped to the best
fi shing spots and assisted
their honored charges with
anything and everything
requested. One team drew
a 9’ sturgeon alongside their
craft. After bragging-rights
photos were taken, the fab-
ulous creature regained its
freedom. Throughout the
day, many other photo-
graphs were taken of happy
Veterans with their catches,
all of which were released
back into the river.”
Stolz said Fish’n the
Brave was prepared to serve
up to 100 veterans, but fewer
showed up. Next year, she
said, the American Legion
hopes to help advertise the
opportunity to its members.
“We exist to help Veter-
ans,” she said in an email.
“This local event is amaz-
ing! We want to be more
involved in the future.”
The Umatilla Chamber of
Commerce and Visitor Cen-
ter helped get sponsors for
the event and do some of the
legwork, and the chamber’s
president, Mark Ribich, said
they were happy to help.
The event helped local busi-
nesses by drawing fi shing
guides and veterans from
the region into Umatilla, he
said, “but the bigger mission
was Tony’s mission, which
was serving veterans.”
Sponsors provided a sack
lunch and outdoor dinner for
the veterans, funding to help
cover costs of the event, and
prizes to add to the drawing
Fisher did for fi shing gear
and vouchers for guided
trips.
Signups for next year’s
free event on Sept. 11, 2021,
are already available on the
Fisher’s Catch Outfi tters
website at fi sherscatchoutfi t-
ters.com/fi shn-the-brave.
Shepherd Medical Center as
an admitting clerk and went
back to school to become a
radiology technologist.
Although she is no lon-
ger enlisted, Piercy said her
time in the Air Force taught
her attention to detail, cour-
age, integrity and how to be
a team player, and she said
she has tried to instill those
same values in her children.
“The military helped
mold me into the person I
am today,” she said.
After her remarks, Echo
School District Superinten-
dent Raymon Smith encour-
aged students and other
community members watch-
ing the broadcast to thank
veterans they see for their
service. He described how
his father, a Vietnam vet-
eran, refused to seek needed
help and support available
to him as a veteran because
of how badly he was treated
after he returned from war.
“When he got home he
was spit on, he was called
names, he had things thrown
at him, and he was treated
as a second rate citizen for
a political stance he didn’t
have a say in, that he didn’t
have a choice in. But he went
because he was drafted; he
went and served his coun-
try,” Smith said.
He said that’s why Echo
hosts Veterans Day events
each year, so that students
can understand the sacrifi ces
that veterans have made and
appreciate their service.
“It is vitally important
that we as a country remem-
ber to thank our service
members, and remember to
say we support them as peo-
ple,” he said.
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