Back in the days of the 60’s and 70’s, so many things were different from our current day. During those times, when a group of motorcycle riders gathered towards a town, merchants would hurry customers out of the shops, close the doors, put on their Closed sign and hie out of their back doors to their cars. Or, they would ring up the local police or sheriff’s department, begging for the law to show up right away.

Nowadays, when a group of motorcycle riders go by, people stand on the sidelines waving, cheering and applauding for these same people. It is so much different than from those bygone days! Many of the bikes are festooned with the American Flag or a particular flag from the branch of service they served. Sure, many of them are wearing leather apparel, but many of the badges adorning the vests signify certain aspects of their military life. And all of these badges are worn with immense pride.

Not only do the Riders show up at airports to welcome homecoming military, they serve as an honor guard at military funerals, or gather together to do pub crawls in the hopes of raising much needed dollars for the various committees they sponsor. All Riders are members of a certain Post or Legion, but in order to become a Rider, they must first be a member of the Post, the Auxiliary, the DAV, or in the case of the Legion, the Sons.

Our Riders of the VFW Post 4174 are proud to be participating in a new, extra venture. For all the troops which are overseas, making the important and necessary call home is very costly and also a rarity for the many professionals. This new venture our Riders are supporting is called CELL PHONES FOR SOLDIERS.

Cell phones for soldiers helps the troops call home by providing FREE communication tools to every branch of our United States Military people. To sponsor a real heart-felt call, the general public can assist us in our venture by donating gently used cell phones. The phones are cleaned of their previous information and distributed so our troops are able to make that call to home.

At 25 S. Homestead Road in Lehigh Acres, the Post has a box waiting for all of us to try and fill it in this worthy enterprise and we are calling on all our neighbors to assist. We are open Sunday through Saturday and would appreciate your cooperation. You’ll be glad you did!