Joe Maressa of Hawley is Post Quartermaster (Chief Financial Officer) for the VFW  Post 531 in Honesdale. He’s also a five-year member of the American Legion Post 311, Hawley.
“Our mission statement for the VFW is, ‘Honor the dead by helping the living through Veteran Service and Community Service.’ And that’s basically what our organizations do,” Joe said. Joe is a Vietnam veteran. He served in the Navy from December, 1967 to February, 1969. “My unit was the Commander of Naval Forces, Vietnam. I served under General (William) Westmoreland when I first got there,” he said. Joe served in Saigon during the Tet Offensive.
It took years for him to talk about his service experience. “It did take years...I really never dwelled on it, that I was a veteran, or talked about it much until I actually retired ...and come up here and saw that there was some activity with the different veteran’s organizations. And I have started talking about it more since then (with other veterans) ...Obviously we have a lot of things in common, even if we don’t know each other ...It’s very easy to go up to one of the members that you don’t know and just strike up a conservation. And basically, it’s, ‘Where’d you serve and when?’ And you break the ice that way,” he said.
“On the flipside of this, the negative side is that I have attended a lot more funerals than I ever thought I would — the passing of World War II veterans ...We lose about 8 to 12 a year, just in our small Post. But I feel as if our organization does help the families get through it, because we do provide a Veteran’s Ceremony for that person. And we’ve gotten a lot of nice comments that they never really saw a Veteran’s Service before at a funeral (with a 21-gun salute and the sounding of Taps).”
Wayne County 9/11 Memorial        
Joe was also involved with the Wayne County 9/11 Memorial, as part of the design committee. They were honored to receive the steel girders, pieces of steel from Ground Zero. “Not that many pieces were given out to the fire department, but one was obtained for our area. And with that, we felt was our mission ...to build a monument to recognize those that perished and also the first responders that responded to that disaster, which included all the fire departments, police departments, Red Cross, all the agencies. And after that, obviously the Armed Services got involved because we ultimately are going against terrorism now. So, we wanted to honor all the branches of the services, so they’re also honored with the emblem of each branch of service embedded in the monument.”
Joe and his wife Janice are married 32 years, have a daughter and three grandchildren, including a set of twins.
  Anyone with a suggestion of a volunteer from our area who we may interview, is asked to call Tammy Compton at (570)253-3055 or e-mail tcompton@wayneindependent.com.