Kevin Canty new commander at the helm of the Lynbrook VFW

The Lynbrook Veterans of Foreign Wars has been a staple in the community for decades — but after a fire tore through the group’s meeting hall in December there was a void in many people’s lives. Now, eight months later, the Lynbrook VFW Hall is set to reopen in the coming weeks, and when the first meeting is held in the brand new facility, a new commander will be calling his first meeting to order.

Kevin Canty was elected as commander in May, but since the Lynbrook VFW doesn’t meet during the summer months, he will really start sinking his teeth into the new position come September. “I knew it was a fraternal organization for veterans,” Canty said of his decision to join the VFW in February 2010, “and coming back [from] being a veteran of a foreign war, I wanted to be part of that community.”

Canty served in Afghanistan from October 2008 to October 2009 where he and nine other members of his team trained an Afghan garrison company – the company in charge of running their respective military base. Canty said his job was to train the Afghan garrison company to make sure the base ran smoothly, including facilitating security plans, setting up their medical clinic and a dining facility and making sure their soldiers got paid. “Everything in the U.S. military that we take for granted we help them do,” he said.

A graduate of Archbishop Molly High School, class of 1994 and the United States Naval Academy, 1998, Canty has served all over the country and remains involved in the Navy Reserves as part of the Naval Cooperation and Guidance for Shipping Unit. He served time on the USS Mount Whitney in Norfolk, VA and the USS Yorktown in Pascagoula, Miss while he was on active duty, among time in other areas. He married Janet in 2005 and they now have two children, with a third due in October.

In June 2008, just six weeks after he became a father, he was mobilized from the Naval Reserves and went to training at Fort Reilly in Kansas. Three months later he was deployed to Afghanistan.