CHARLESTON, W.Va.— Ahead of Veteran’s Day, CAMC Memorial Hospital is honoring their employee veterans.
On Wednesday, the hospital held a flag ceremony, that saw the previous flag that had been hanging on their flagpole for the past year given to one of their employee veterans, Jason Henderson. After he was presented with the flag, a new flag was raised in its place, until next year’s ceremony.
Henderson is the youngest of eight and had six older brothers who all served in the military. He said that he knew he wanted to go into the military since he was little.
“I knew at a young age that I was going to follow into their footsteps, so I knew what I was going to do after high school, so after graduating high school I went straight into the military,” Henderson said.
He served a couple of tours in Fort Sill in Oklahoma, went to Germany and did a short tour at Desert Storm and then came back and did a tour in Fort Carson, Colorado. And shortly after leaving Fort Carson, in 2012, he joined CAMC Memorial Hospital working in the Health Information Center and has eventually worked his way over to the Breast Center. He said that working in the center is something he looks forward to everyday.
“It’s one of the highlights of my day,” Henderson said. “I love listening to the patient’s story, praying with the patients when asked too, it’s a rewarding job.”
And he said that it was overwhelming to have been picked to receive the flag.
“I was very humbled, when I first upon receiving the news, I was very, very humbled and honored,” Henderson said.
Members from a ROTC group at Capital High School, presented Henderson with the flag, where he was surrounded with his family.
“I couldn’t put it into words, like I said I’m very honored,” Henderson said. “I come from a close-knit family, we’re very close, so I knew they probably show out for me, and I love em’, they love me, as you can see, they were all here.”
While this was the first year that CAMC Memorial held the ceremony, it will now become an annual thing for the hospital after they received their flagpole last year.
And Director of Volunteer Services Kelly Anderson said that the volunteer auxiliary at the hospital made it happen.
“CAMC Memorial’s volunteer auxiliary, recognized last year that there was not a flagpole at CAMC Memorial, and so they sponsored and paid for the flagpole to go and decided to do an annual flag ceremony,” Anderson said.
The volunteer auxiliary at CAMC hospitals is there to provide assistance to whichever hospital they volunteer at and help carry out projects that would help improve patient care and morale.
And to Anderson this ceremony is just another way for the volunteers to help honor those employees that have served.
“Our volunteer’s and our auxiliaries do so much for the hospitals, so this is just one more thing that they do to honor our employees, as well as veterans,” Anderson said.