Nov 10, 2016 5 min read

Ninety-five years ago, the congregation and friends of the First Methodist Episcopal Church of Canonsburg dedicated a massive pipe organ to the veterans who had served in World War I.

In 2001, when the same church was known as First United Methodist, the organ was rededicated to veterans of all wars and branches of the service “past, present and if need be, future.”

The words proved to be prophetic, sadly but truly, because American service members are still serving – and dying – 15 years later.

Chuck Kolsosky doesn’t want anyone to forget the men and women in the United States military, so for 15 of the past 16 years, for Veterans Day, he has organized a public tribute at the church to veterans and first responders.

This year’s observance is scheduled to begin at 7 p.m. tonight at the church, 161 W. Pike St., and his goal is to fill every seat.

While the tribute has long been planned, this year it will have an added meaning.

The church is not far from where Michael Cwiklinski ambushed two Canonsburg police officers early Thursday during a domestic incident, killing Officer Scott Bashioum and wounding a second officer before turning the gun on his wife and himself.

“What a tragedy we have experienced as a community,” said the Rev. Debra Rogosky, pastor of First United Methodist Church of Canonsburg. “This is a time we come together, whether it’s loss of life or livelihood. We come together as a community to pray the families through this and be praying for our fractured town right now.”

For Kolsosky, 74, organizing the event is a labor of love.

“The organ is why this all started,” said Kolsosky, a Canonsburg native, in a recent interview. “Canonsburg has a lot of veterans and a lot of plaques for veterans. I don’t think we do justice to those veterans that we have. We just try every year to make it a little different. I just appreciate so much the people who help us.

“The reason we put in the first responders is what those people do here at home so that families can feel safe when their loved one is overseas that there’s somebody here to take care of their family. Those people deserve as much respect as anybody.”

Kolsosky said the tribute to veterans grew out of an annual project-planning meeting at the the church, where almost all of the men present realized they were military veterans. “It was so long ago,” Kolsosky said, and he doesn’t remember if the person who came up with the idea was a veteran or not.

He counts a dozen members of the U.S. military among his family, and recalls that he just missed being granted candidate status to the United States Air Force Academy in 1960.

“I’m not much of an athlete and I’m surprised I got as far as I did,” he said.

He enlisted that year anyway, hoping to gain an education, and the Air Force sent him to the Prum, West Germany, air station in radar maintenance during the Cold War and Vietnam War era.

“When you go into the military, you serve where they send you,” he said. “We did our job to help protect our troops, but we didn’t have to carry a gun.”

Kolsosky, who attained the rank of Airman 1st Class, was able to take correspondence courses while in the Air Force, and after his discharge, he earned a degree in physics and mathematics on the GI Bill at then-California State College in 1967, launching a career at several companies, some of which no longer exist.

He stresssed that attendance at First Methodist’s tribute to veterans is not based on any church or political affiliation. Attendees don’t even have to have a connection to Canonsburg, just an appreciation of veterans rather than taking their sacrifice for granted.

Recognizing veterans and the needs of their families is not just a once-a-year flash in the pan at First Methodist.

The Rev. Dr. Debra Rogosky, pastor, who will welcome those gathered for the veterans’ tribute, notes in her newsletter that the congregation collects donations year-round for the Waynesburg veterans’ food pantry for families of those serving in the National Guard and what they call “grab and go” bags for families who are lodging at Fisher House while they wait for their loved ones to receive treatment at VA medical centers.

According to Susan Meighen, Washington County director of veterans affairs, approximately 17,500 veterans call Washington County home. Pennsylvania ranks fourth in the number of veterans with 939,069; ahead of the Keystone State are Florida, 1.5 million; Texas, 1.6 million; and California, 1.8 million, according to the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs National Center for Veterans Analysis and Statistics.

At the most recent meeting of the county commissioners, Meighen read this quotation that succinctly sums up patriotism among those who serve in the nation’s armed forces: “A veteran is someone who wrote a blank check, payable to the United States of America for an amount up to and including his life, the currency of freedom is the blood, sweat and tears of a nation’s people.”

Although the quotation is listed on various websites as “author unknown,” a Nov. 12, 2007, story in the Honolulu Advertiser about a Veterans Day observance at Punchbowl, Hawaii, attributed it to Gene Castagnetti, director of the National Memorial Cemetery of the Pacific.