Brigadier General Richard “Dwayne” Wilson who is Commanding General of the Georgia Army National Guard, served as the keynote speaker at a veterans event held in Summerville this past Saturday.

General Wilson has served in Operation Desert Storm, Operation Desert Shield, and Operation New Dawn in Iraq as well as missions in Albania and Kosovo.

The event was held at Veterans Memorial Park, located at Dick Dowdy Park in Summerville and was organized by local veterans organizations along with local veterans advocates Odell Anderson and former State Representative Barbara Massey Reece.

During the program, nineteen Individual Veteran Memorials were unveiled and dedicated.  These will make a total of 688 memorials displayed in the park.

After the program, the local veterans organizations invited veterans and their families to a luncheon at the Chattooga County Memorial Home located at 818 Memorial Drive  Summerville, GA 30747 in the Pennville community. 

Both events were sponsored by local veterans organizations: VFW Post 5688, American Legion Post 129, VFW Auxiliary, Sons of that American Legion, and the Veterans Memorial Park Committee.