Member of the Month

by Charles Roberson, JBS member

Charles “Chuck” Katlic, our Member of the Month for August, has been a JBS member for about five years. He is unashamedly proud of his membership and “Birches” everyone with whom he comes into contact. Since almost everyone in his hometown of Weatherford, Texas, identifies Chuck as a Bircher, he is a first-rate representative for the Society even while engaging in his many non-Birch community activities.

Some of these activities were featured in the “Goodness of America” column in The New American for March 16, 2009, which focused on Chuck’s generous giving of his time to help the veterans in his area. Chuck, himself, is a veteran of the Battle of the Bulge and is also chaplain of American Legion Post 163 in Weatherford.

As the post’s Legion Commander, I said in an interview with the Texas Weatherford Democrat newspaper a few months back that Chuck “loves to work with school children, talking to them about patriotism. Younger people look to Chuck as a hero.”

During his talks to the children, Chuck explains to them the importance of our founding documents such as the Declaration of Independence and Constitution, including the Bill of Rights. He said about the children, “They’re the future of our country and if anybody’s going to save us, it’s going to be them.”

As chairman of the Legion’s flag committee, Chuck raises funds to decorate veterans’ graves on Memorial Day. This year, with the help of his small army of elementary school students, he was responsible for the placement of over 6,700 flags on veterans’ graves in Parker County, Texas.

He also heads the Legion’s program of transporting disabled and indigent veterans to and from doctor’s appointments at V.A. hospitals in Dallas and Forth Worth.

Furthermore, he helped to procure a van for this purpose. He was active in our recent “Tea Party” which drew about 2,000 participants. He is a member of our Business and Professional Luncheon Chapter in Fort Worth and never misses a meeting. Many people refer to him as the “Energizer Bunny”!

Chuck is featured in five books about the Battle of the Bulge, the most recent one being Once Upon a Time in War by Robert E. Humphrey, published by Oklahoma press, in Norman, Oklahoma.

Chuck is 100-percent American — John Wayne-style — and patriotic to the core.