The VFW Post 2760 recently announced that Chloe Combs, an eighth-grade homeschooled student in Etowah County, is Post 2760’s first-place winner of the VFW’s 2024 Patriot’s Pen youth essay contest.
Combs (pictured above at right), who was sponsored by VFW Post 2760 and its auxiliary wrote her winning essay based on this year’s prompt, “How are you inspired by America?”
Combs comes from a military family. She was born while her mother was serving at Hunter Army Airfield. Her grandfather served in the U.S. Army for 22.5 years and her father served in the Alabama National Guard as a vehicle mechanic. Her older brother has joined the national guard and will enter basic training this summer and later will go into active duty in the army once he graduates high school.
Combs enjoys playing the violin, reading, drawing and writing. She has always loved learning about politics and about the history of Ame-rica. She has hopes of becoming a congresswoman one day and representing veterans and the disabled community.
The VFW enacted the Patriot’s Pen youth essay competition in 1995 as a way to encourage young minds to examine America’s history, along with their own experiences in modern American society while improving their writing skills.
The contest is a worldwide competition that gives students in the sixth, seventh and eighth grades the opportunity to write a 300-to-400-word theme-based essay expressing their views on democracy while competing for awards and prizes.
The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the U.S. is the nation’s largest and oldest major war veterans organization. Founded in 1899, the congressionally chartered VFW is comprised entirely of eligible veterans and military service members from the active, guard and reserve forces. For more information, visit vfw.org.