Pensacola News Journal from Pensacola, Florida • F2

2F SUNDAY, JANUARY 24, 2021 PENSACOLA NEWS JOURNAL (850) 462-2032 PJ-GCI0559590-01 WASHINGTON Days before Joe Bi- den became president, incoming lady Jill Biden took a step toward ing a promise to revive a program for military families that she and former lady Michelle Obama once led. Jill Biden named an executive of that program, known as Joining Forces. Rory Brosius, 37, serves on President- elect transition team and was a senior adviser to Jill Biden during the campaign. Brosius previously was dep- uty director of Joining Forces. families still need Brosius told The Associated Press by telephone last Thursday before she joined Jill Biden at a virtual meeting with representatives of organizations that support military families.

During the session, Jill Biden said that, when Joining Forces was launched in 2011, she and Mrs. Obama we had to start by listening. We needed to hear from those of you who know what our community needs What they learned help shape the agenda, she said, adding that, going to build on what we learned dur- ing the Obama-Biden administration. continue to listen and work with Mrs. Obama and Jill Biden, as the wife of then-Vice President Biden, launched Joining Forces to encourage members of the public and the private sector to ways big and small to sup- port service members, veterans, their families and their caregivers.

The pro- gram focused on education, employ- ment and wellness. Jill Biden brought to the White House a unique awareness of military family issues. Her late son, Beau, had served in the Delaware Army National Guard. Jill Biden continued working with military families through the Biden Foundation after leaving the White House in 2017. The Trump administration also made a point of highlighting military issues and veterans, with President Donald Trump increasing the military budget and working to improve health care.

Outgoing lady Melania Trump and Karen Pence, the wife of vice presi- dent Mike Pence, also worked on mili- tary family support issues, but without the banner of Joining Forces. Mrs. Pence, who has a son in the Ma- rine Corps, keyed in on employment challenges military spouses face be- cause they relocate frequently. She also visited 44 U.S. military installations.

Jill Biden names new director for military families program Darlene Superville ASSOCIATED PRESS KANNAPOLIS, N.C. Dorothy Schmidt Cole, recognized last year as the oldest living U.S. Marine, has died at age 107. Beth Kluttz, only child, con- last Friday that her mother died of a heart attack at home in Kannapolis, North Carolina, on Jan. 7.

Cole enlisted as one of the earliest female Marine reservists following the bombing of Pearl Harbor, The Charlotte Observer reported. She had left her Ohio home to head to Pittsburgh, where she hoped to volunteer for the Navy, but be- cause she was only 4 feet, 11 inches tall, she was deemed too short to meet Navy standards. Undaunted by her rejection, Cole de- cided to learn how to an airplane and persuade the Marine Corps to let her be a pilot. In July 1942, President Franklin D. Roosevelt signed the Marine Corps Reserve into law, giving wom- en the chance to positions left open by men headed to combat.

The Corps delayed formation of the branch until February 1943, and Cole enlisted months later at age 29, becoming one of the earliest volunteers for the branch. Despite putting in 200 hours in the cockpit of a Piper Cub, Cole completed six weeks of boot camp at Camp Le- jeune with the First Battalion and wound up a type- writer instead of an husband, Wiley, was in the Na- vy and served on the aircraft carrier USS Hornet, which sailed in both the Theater and the Solomon Islands cam- paign during World War II before it was torpedoed and sunk in October 1942. Cole moved to San Francisco after the war to be with Wiley. They married and had their only child in 1953. The couple were both hired by the Ames Research Center in Silicon Valley in California be- fore Wiley Cole died of a heart attack in 1955.

Kluttz moved from California to North Carolina in 1976 and Cole followed her to the area around 1979. Oldest living Marine dies at 107 ASSOCIATED PRESS Dorothy Schmidt Cole in 1945. COURTESY OF BETH KLUTTZ VIA AP mine whether health issues could have a connection to military service. The bill that has stalled in the House, called the K2 Veterans Toxic Exposure Accountability Act, goes further than Trump's executive order in a number of ways. For example, the bill includes a mandate that within six months of its passage, the secretaries of defense and veterans identify any cur- rent Veterans to which veterans who served at K2 are entitled.

The bill further directs the two secretaries to tell Congress what kind of outreach it is using to inform veter- ans of those K2-related Additionally, the bill as written would require the VA secretary to es- tablish a registry of veterans who might have been exposed to toxic ma- terials at K2 as a means of monitoring the health of that exposure, and to update the registry with the cause of death of registered K2 veter- ans. Beyond that, the K2 Veterans Tox- ic Exposure Accountability Act would set up criteria for determining wheth- er a given illness is connected to a veteran's service at K2. A positive de- termination would qualify the ed veteran for VA related to treatment of the illness. Last month, the Okaloosa County Board of County Commissioners sent a letter to the area's congressional delegation in support of the K2 Veter- ans Toxic Exposure Accountability Act, stating that they "believe that some of the soldiers in our communi- ty may have served at this location during this period (from Oct. 1, 2001, to the end of 2005)." Rep.

Matt Gaetz, who serves Oka- loosa County and much of the rest of Northwest Florida in the House, be- came a co-sponsor of the legislation long before the commission sent its letter. Gaetz signed on as a co-spon- sor April 28 of last year. He is one of eight Florida House members to sign on as one of the 78 co-sponsors of the bill. Veterans Continued from Page 1F.