Gessler backed for department historian

On March 2, Spam Post 570 in Austin endorsed Sandy Gessler for department historian.

Gessler currently serves as the historian for Post 570, for the 1st District and for the Department of Minnesota.

She is a past commander for Post 41 in Grafton, N.D. She resides in Albert Lea now. She has been a Legionnaire for 47 years.

She is interested in having another Minnesota entry in the American Legion National Historian Contest. She already has won national historian awards for Minnesota,  and she participated in it while living in Florida.

She comes to American  Legion Department of Minnesota events and often sets up displays.

Gessler served in the regular Army from September 1975 to May 1977 and was honorably discharged. She served in the North Dakota National Guard from April 1981 to June 1985, also honorably. Later, she served honorably in the Nebraska National Guard and the Army Reserve in Florida. With the Reserve, she deployed to Iraq for Operation Enduring Freedom in 2003.

Her final military stint was again with the North Dakota National Guard, from 2008 to 2012, when she was honorably discharged with a medical disability. She has a 100 percent VA rating.

In the military, she served in dispatcher and transportation roles. In the years between serving, she was having children.

She has three grown children, ages 26, 46 and 49.