While Veterans Day was celebrated more than a month ago and National Veterans and Military Families Month concluded with the end of November, Monroe County likes to recognize its veterans all year long. 

In this same spirit, the Veterans of Foreign Wars have recently placed special emphasis on its Still Serving campaign which began back in 2020, highlighting how American veterans continue to contribute to their communities even out of uniform.

At the national level, veterans are reported to average almost 30 percent more volunteer hours each year, donate roughly 15 percent more than civilians to charity and 40 percent of veterans belong to a group working on community issues – according to the 2021 Veterans Civic Health Index.

Locally, one Waterloo veteran serves as a tremendous example of servicemembers continuing to serve as he has his hands in a number of organizations and efforts throughout the area.

Though he’s lived most of his life in Minnesota, Robert Manning took to Monroe County fairly quickly after a transfer to Scott Air Force Base brought him here amid the start of the COVID-19 pandemic.

He opted to join the military immediately after graduating high school, joining a military tradition that had been in his family for at least two generations.

“My father was a Vietnam veteran, so he had a rich service with that,” Manning said. “One of his brothers was in Korea, and my grandpa was in World War I. A rich history of military service. My dad had been in the Air Force, the Navy and also the Army Reserves, so he had a good sampling of the different services.”

With basic training taking him to Lackland Air Force Base in Texas, Manning spoke about some of the highlights of his military career.

He recalled finding an opening for a navigator, a commissioned role that required substantially more training.

Manning later wound up working with Northwest Airlines, now Delta Airlines, doing pilot instruction in the company’s simulators.

He further recounted being part of the Air National Guard. Though he was based in Minnesota through that time, he had multiple overseas deployments to Germany, Puerto Rico, Panama, Iraq and Afghanistan, with six or seven flying combat missions in the Middle East.

Throughout his time in the military, Manning also pursued his education and civilian work, attending community college before studying elementary education at Augsburg University, maintaining his license as he spent a number of years as a substitute teacher.

His education continued as he ultimately received a masters in business administration.

Manning spoke about the impact that his military service had on him, particularly noting how it helped shape him as a young man.

“I wasn’t quite sure what I wanted to do as I came out of high school, so the military helped provide some of that structure and then also the financial assistance,” Manning said. “Just helped me get on a path so I could succeed in life and learn about discipline.”

As mentioned, Manning and his family found themselves in Waterloo just a few years ago, his daughter in 2nd grade at the time.

With a few years spent at Scott Air Force Base, he retired back in February of this year, but even as he was still serving, he was eager to give back to the community that had welcomed him with open arms.

“As I reached retirement, the military is big on service before self,” Manning said. “I wasn’t going into work all the time to provide that service in uniform, but I was looking for different avenues and things that I could do to provide service to my community. As I got to know the area of Waterloo and Monroe County, we grew to love where we lived, and I wanted to provide something to the community that it had provided to us.”

His service to the area has come in a variety of forms, one being his work with a collection of local Girl Scouts who have developed an interest in robotics.

Manning spoke about how his own daughter joined Girl Scouts, the group’s leader soon bringing up to him that this area has a strong robotics program.

Looking to encourage his own daughter to explore STEM, he joined his wife and other scout parents in starting the team which is currently in the midst of their third year, having started with the FIRST LEGO League Challenge back in 2023.

“We helped them understand coding, what the robotics do, and it helped me enable some of my background in elementary education,” Manning said. “I love helping the youth and getting involved with that.”

Manning’s service has further been driven by his daughter as she’s joined the Waterloo Piranhas swim team, prompting him to step into an opening on the board only to now find himself serving as the volunteer president.

He noted the work he’s done with the group’s other leaders, helping over 100 swimmers on the team to succeed as he strives to ensure they can practice and grow as athletes.

Another notable exploit of Manning’s is his work with the VA Medical Center at Jefferson Barracks.

His efforts there began in the campus’s bowling alley as he helped veterans less mobile than himself enjoy the game, though his more recent volunteer work has had him working as a driver, ensuring that physically disabled or low-mobility veterans can get to the campus as they need.

Manning’s volunteering with the VA came about largely from his own experiences there along with his continued passion for giving back.

“I was very impressed with the care that they were providing to me, and I wanted to give something back to that environment and the fellow veterans I served with,” Manning said.

Elsewhere, Manning is active in his church’s leadership committee which happened to lead him to volunteer alongside his wife at the Waterloo Junior High School library on Fridays, ensuring that students can access the resources there as they need.

Singing the praises of his fellow veterans, he expressed his appreciation for the VFW’s Still Serving campaign and how it highlights servicemembers who persist as active members of their community.

He further spoke to how the military prepared him and his fellows to be as active as they are, even as many struggle with the physical or mental scars of their service, saying, “We feel a desire to use the skills that we learned in the military to enrich our community.”

“I think it’s a great awareness piece for the public,” Manning said. “A lot of times, we don’t recognize or know within our community all the different people that have a background in military service. We do become aware of it this time of year with Veterans Day, but these are people that are in our community.”