Media are invited to attend a VA Portland Health Care System (VAPORHCS) event celebrating the renaming of the Bend VA Clinic after long-time Bend resident and Congressional Medal of Honor recipient, Robert D. Maxwell.
The invitation-only event is scheduled for October 26, 2020, at 12:30 p.m. in the parking lot of the Bend VA Clinic located at 2650 Northeast Courtney Drive, Bend, Oregon 97701.
To ensure this is a small event and to help maintain proper COVID-19-related safety measures, we ask media to not promote this event prior to its start. All guests are asked to wear masks and maintain proper social distancing during the event. The ceremony will take place in and around a large, open-sided tent in the clinic parking lot.
A bill was introduced by an Oregon congressional delegation to rename the clinic the Robert D. Maxwell VA Clinic. The bill was signed into law on October 13, 2020.
Maxwell, a World War II Veteran, earned the Medal of Honor in eastern France while under enemy fire, risking his life by falling on an enemy hand grenade to protect the lives of other soldiers. He survived the wounds from the grenade blast and was awarded the medal on April 6, 1945.
At the time Maxwell passed away on May 11, 2019, he was the oldest Medal of Honor recipient in the nation and one of four remaining Veterans from World War II to be awarded the Medal of Honor. After his military service, he worked as a teacher in Bend for many years.
The Bend clinic currently serves more than 6,800 Veterans with 40,000-plus outpatient visits annually.
The newly named Robert D. Maxwell VA Clinic is the second in VAPORHCS to be named after a Veteran; the first was The Dalles Clinic in 2016 named after WWII Veteran Loren R. Kaufman, also a Medal of Honor recipient.
Approximately one in eight of the 1,300-plus VA sites of care are named after individuals.
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