Vietnam veteran Stanley Herzog makes sure other vets are not forgotten

GENEVA – Vietnam veteran Stanley Herzog makes sure the veterans at Edward Hines Jr. VA Hospital are not forgotten.

As president of the Vietnam Veterans of America Chapter 693, which serves Kane and DuPage counties, the Geneva resident said they are connected to two resident care units at Hines.

One is a facility where veterans with spinal cord injuries use electric wheel chairs.

“Before the [COVID-19] virus, we would take them to DePaul basketball games, White Sox games, Kane County Cougars games,” Herzog, 77, said.

It was only recently that the chapter volunteers were allowed back into the building, Herzog said.

“We brought Brown’s chicken,” Herzog said. “We talked to the activity lady there and each person told her what part of the chicken he wanted. We did the serving with gloves and everything.”

The other unit the chapter visits is a facility that serves veterans who have mental health and substance abuse problems.

“They are all ambulatory. Before COVID, we took them to Cantigny and ate at the golf course restaurant there,” Herzog said.

Before he retired in 2009, Herzog worked as a broker at Paine Webber, Bear Sterns and Fidelity Investments.

His involvement with the Vietnam Veterans of America was pure serendipity.

“I went to White Hen Pantry,” he said. “I was going in to buy a raffle ticket and a former coworker from Paine Webber in Chicago also living in Geneva had the VVA hat on when he came out with cigarettes.”

They started meeting at the Congregational Church in Geneva and after the president retired, Herzog was elected and has been president for six years. He also is a member of the American Legion Post 75 in Geneva and the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5036 in St. Charles.

A lector at St. Peter Catholic Church in Geneva, Herzog also volunteered to serve as chaplain for veterans’ funerals held at Malone’s Funeral Home in Geneva.

The chapter also participates in the Geneva Swedish Days Parade. It used to participate in the Downers Grove Fourth of July parade.

“Somebody in Downers Grove hit the wrong button,” Herzog said. “We stopped participating in that parade because there was a group of World War II reenactors for the German side of the war … dressed up like Nazis. We will not attend that parade anymore.”

Retired U.S. Air Force veteran Gary Leonard, formerly of St. Charles, said Herzog is a role model for veterans, especially Vietnam era veterans.

“Stanley has given a voice to a lot of individuals, Vietnam veterans in particular, who felt society was not very welcoming to them – and that’s putting it nicely,” Leonard said. “What Stanley did was put all that aside and helped all those veterans, who, like him, were having trouble adjusting. And boom! That was a lifelong project for him.”

Vietnam veterans did their duty, Leonard said, and some came back wounded in a lot of different ways.

“Guys like Stanley gave a lot of their time and effort helping those people readjust,” Leonard said. “Stanley is a terrific public servant, even though he does not work for the government, and a great humanitarian and a very gentle soul.”