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Henry "Gene" Burton Sr Memorial, Post 13 Sitka, Alaska

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40 & 8 Voiture 1412

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The Forty & Eight was formed in 1920 by American Legionnaires as an honor society and from its earliest days, it has been committed to charitable aims. Membership is by invitation for members of the American Legion who have shown exemplary service. All Forty & Eight members are thus Veterans of congressionally recognized wartime periods via their Legion membership.

The Forty & Eight’s titles and symbols reflect its First World War origins. American servicemen in France were transported to the battlefront on narrow gauge French railroads (Chemin de Fer) inside boxcars (Voitures) that were half the size of American boxcars. Each French boxcar was stenciled with a “40/8”, denoting its capacity to hold either forty men or eight horses. This ignominious and uncomfortable mode of transportation was familiar to all who traveled from the coast to the trenches; a common small misery among American soldiers who thereafter found “40/8” a lighthearted symbol of the deeper service, sacrifice, and unspoken horrors of war that truly bind those who have borne the battle.

 

  

Voiture 1412: Chartered December 12,1950

Chartered Members

Russell L. Clithero, Robert Eide, Puget V. Faulk, Clyde B. Hager, Carl E. Hardin, Carl H. Karpstein, Victor M. LaMoe, Dormand C. McGraw, Ben C. Miller, W. Langille Morrison Jr., Charles E. Pearl, Garman P. Shutt, Edward W. Van Horn, John H. Van Horn, Wm. Fran???? (water damaged) Charles Whittemore.

 

Voiture 1412: Re-chartered 21 February 2023

New Chartered Members:

Vincent S. Winter, Troy Wingard, William Glanzer, Samual Pointer, Theodore Allio, William Ward, Charles F. Quimbly, Kihei T. Spencer, Isaiah Gerke and George Bennett Sr