Ambassadors wanted to help celebrate veterans

Every year the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman sponsors Military Appreciation Night at the Mat-Su Miners. This year, that game is at 7 p.m., June 27, against the Anchorage Glacier Pilots at Hermon Brothers Field at the Alaska State Fairgrounds.

For us, this night will bring together a few of our favorite things — veterans, Miners baseball and summer in Alaska.

We’ve recruited local veterans to help us pass out tickets to this game to vets and active-duty service members. You may have seen Lloyd Smith, Bert Hall or James Hastings passing out tickets around the Valley during the last few weeks. We asked these guys to make sure our military service members get first chance at these tickets.

Now, with just a few days before the game, we’d like to share the remaining tickets with readers who’d like to help us celebrate Military Appreciation Night.

We are looking for a few dozen local ambassadors to stop by our office, pick up tickets and commit to attend that Wednesday night to help us pay our respects. Besides clapping and cheering when Vietnam veteran Dale Gardner throws out the first pitch, which will no doubt be a strike, we also need folks to smile, shake hands and say thank you to the many veterans who will be seated in the stands.

If you are a business that offers special services or discounts to veterans and want to participate in this celebration, contact us at 352-2250. We’ll be happy to talk over ways we can unite to bolster this community celebration of our military.

If you are a veterans group and would like to get involved, we welcome your support and expertise. Please contact us at 352-2250 or news@frontiersman.com.

Many businesses around the Mat-Su Valley sponsor game nights at the Miners, but we will need help from our friends to do Military Appreciation Night right.

More than anything, we need ambassadors willing to attend, have conversations and make new friendships. Often, people in the military are stationed far away from their friends and family who make up their traditional support groups. With the stress deployment adds to our neighbors’ day-to-day lives, this is our chance to make friends of our new neighbors and strengthen their local safety nets.

How we celebrate and honor veterans’ service and sacrifice should not be limited to words said at solemn ceremonies on Memorial Day and Veterans Day. This is a chance to meet the real people behind all those deployment, injury and homecoming headlines, and to offer these people our friendship, support and real gratitude.

Stop by the Mat-Su Valley Frontiersman office on the Palmer-Wasilla Highway between 8 a.m. and 5 p.m., Monday through Friday and get your tickets. Remember though, accepting the tickets represents a commitment on your part to attend June 27 and help us celebrate our veterans, the Mat-Su Miners and summer in Alaska.