HONORING SERVICE AND SACRIFICE
Honoring Service and Sacrifice D
uring the sideline visitations and discussions in the Conference of Grand Masters in North America, in Portland, Oregon, February 2007, MW Steven R. Johnson, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of Minnesota, requested permission from MW Robert B. Heyat, Grand Master of the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia, to make a Minnesota resident, a patient in Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C. a Mason at Sight. This request received a warm and supportive response and a date and time was set for this occasion. The candidate, John Kriesel, a Minnesota National Guard Soldier who had been seriously injured in a Fallujah blast in Operation Iraqi Freedom, was to be made a Mason at Sight and, to this end, the Grand Master, Deputy Grand Master, Grand Secretary and a number of other Grand Lodge officers from Minnesota, braving one of the late winter storms in our area, flew in to Washington, and gathered in a room designated for the purpose of making a Mason at Sight at Walter Reed AMC. The Grand Master of Masons in the District of Columbia, accompanied by a number of his Grand Line officers, was also in attendance to offer support. But it was not to be! Sgt. Kriesel was taken in for emergency procedures and as such was not able to attend the ceremony, following which it was decided that the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia will have the privilege of conferring this honor on the young soldier as a courtesy for the Grand Lodge of Minnesota. And so it was that on Wednesday, April 4, 2007 MW Robert Heyat, Grand Master, together with RW Akram R. Elias, Deputy Grand Master, in a very impressive ceremony made Sgt. John Kriesel, now Brother John, a Mason at Sight. Due to space limitations, only a small team of Grand Lodge officers accompanied the Grand Master: RW Mansour Hatefi, P.G.M., Grand Secretary, RW Robert F. Drechsler, P.G.M., Grand Treasurer, RW Sheldon I. Rappe-
The Voice of Freemasonry
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Walter R. Hoenes,
PM
port, Grand Lecturer, WB Gerhard Meinzer, Grand Tiler, WB Sissay Awoke, Grand Lodge Physician, and Brother Sviatoslav V. Voloshin, Grand Lodge Photographer. MW Richard E. Fletcher, PGM and Executive Secretary of Masonic Service Association of North America, who had been instrumental in making all this possible, was also present. The ceremony ended on a high note when Grand Master Johnson, who had been listening to the proceeding all along via a telephone hook up, congratulated the newly made Master Mason and encouraged him to affiliate with a local lodge of his choice at his earliest convenience. The Grand Master and the Grand Lodge of the District of Columbia is pleased and honored to have participated in this special occasion. We thank the Grand Lodge of Minnesota for the opportunity and extend our best wishes to Brother Kriesel and his family. Brother John Kriesel in a letter to MW Heyat, Grand Master and in response to a request for his biographical information writes:
“Greetings Most Worshipful Grand Master, I want to thank you again for the wonderful ceremony on Wednesday evening. Here is my biography which includes the story of the blast that took my legs. For all of you that don't know me, my name is John Kriesel and I am a 25 year old National Guardsman (and now a Master Mason). I am also a husband and a father. Since September 2003 I have been on an active duty assignment all but 54 weeks. My first deployment was to Kosovo which lasted 12 months. The second deployment was in support of Operation Iraqi Freedom which began October 1, 2005. I was 15 months into the 18 month deployment (now 22 months with the extension under President Bush's new plan) when I was seriously wounded in action. During the recovery process, I had plenty of time to gain perspective. My father-in-law Worshipful Brother Harold
