Comrade Tommy Lau
Tommy, was a real treasure for our post, a friend of many, he will be sorely missed.
Indeed, he will be always remembered for a lot of things he done for the VFW, like his untiring ability on Buddy Poppy Drive Days to stand and pass out Buddy Poppys on weekends, and do it all day long.. He was known to be a workaholic for the post; worked all day 6 continuous weekends on our community service project Lend a Helping Hand back in July and August 2001 when our post repaired and painted the home of the widow of a 442nd Regimental Combat Team veteran (copy of pictures attached). He was proud of bringing into our post local boy Clarence Young, a Korean War POW, of whom he and his aircrew members brought back home to Hawaii shortly after the Korean War, he was always there for us and directly involved in food preparations at all of our annual post Luaus, he made money for the post by selling boxes of pineapples to visiting mainland National Guard aircrews, and always dedicating many days and hours to recruiting new members into the Post, especially from 2000-2003 during National VFW HQ Free Membership drives, Tommy was credited with bringing in over 1300 members into the VFW, an unbroken stretch which brought our post 3 VFW All American Post and Hawaii’s first VFW Distinguished All American Post honors. One thing we can’t forget, Tommy serving as Post Trustee was a real stickler on details and correctness when it came to auditing post finances, didn’t miss anything, had to be done right the first time, no ifs and buts about it, always looking out for the good of the post, he even holds the record for most “NO” votes ever cast at our post meetings, no one will break that. Also, there was a time when Tommy, wearing his baseball cap with Command Aircrew Wings, and myself made a visit to the Commander (BG) of Hawaii’s 154th Fighter Wing, purpose being to set up VFW recruiting within the Wing, Tommy a good talker he is, wrapped up the recruiting mission in a Jiffy, but then the BG mentioned something about those old Command Wings Tommy had on his cap, the BG, a fighter pilot asked and couldn’t believe that a person in the military could earn 15,000 plus flyng hours, Tommy went through the whole kittikaboodle of when, where and how it all came about, their conversation lasted more than an hour, it turned out to be an interesting day for all.
Yes, Tommy was the best, a real fine person and gentleman, and a fantastic family man. There is a lot more that can be said about Tommy, that’s for sure.
Now our comrade Tommy is up there having a toot with his close pals, comrades Dale Overbey and John Holmes.