‘We will be back. We will rebuild.’

Legion Family members who lost their homes in the L.A. fires remain resilient, committed.

Tom Doran planned to fight to save his house. Diane Elder was stuck at a medical appointment. River Jacques Jr. was trying to get some sleep.

They are just some of the American Legion Family who lost their homes to the wildfires which devastated areas of Los Angeles County earlier this month.

They are also committed to helping their fellow Legion Family members, and their communities in general, as the rebuilding process begins.

‘If you leave, your house will burn.’

Tom Doran’s father-in-law lived across the street in Pacific Palisades from Doran and his family, the same home he had lived in since 1963. Doran’s wife’s family had been residents of the community since the 1930s — “My kids are fifth-generation Palisadeans,” Doran said.

So when the Palisades Fire approached, Doran and his family stood ready.

“I planned on fighting to save my house,” said Doran, a member of the Squadron 283 executive committee. “I was told by a firefighter many years ago, if you leave, your house will burn.”

Armed with water hoses, Doran and his son-in-law kept the houses dowsed—for awhile.

“Ten o’clock rolls around, and all of a sudden, the water’s gone. There’s no water pressure,” Doran said. 

They went to Post 283 to collect their thoughts. Doran’s house was still standing when he went back at midnight to check on it.

“I came back at 2:30 a.m., and my house was ablaze,” he said.

“All we needed was water. And we didn’t have it.”

‘All the detritus of your life … in a huge, enormous, mess.’

A scheduling mix-up kept Diane Elder, a member of Unit 283, at a medical appointment longer than she intended. By the time she left the hospital, there was no way for her to get back to her house in Pacific Palisades.

“It burnt to the ground, it burnt to the foundation,” Elder said. “And there’s just chunks of twisted metal, and chunks of concrete, and pieces of brick, and pieces of the slate roof. … All the detritus of your life, you know, all just jumbled together in a huge, enormous, mess.”

With communication lines not working due to the blaze, Elder initially couldn’t get in touch with her husband, Hank, the former Squadron 283 commander. “I didn’t actually see him for three days,” she said.

She also hasn’t had the time — or the mental energy — to go buy new clothes.

“These are the shoes I was wearing, this is what I was wearing, and I haven’t had time to go and buy new clothes, because shopping is kind of a big deal, you have to go and try things on. I haven’t had the time to do that, nor have I been in the frame of mind to do that, because I’ve been bouncing around from one house to the next until we finally found this one place in Santa Monica where our older son used to live. We took over that house and we’re going to be there at least a year,” Elder said.

‘I heard this boom.’

Rivers Jacques Jr. thought he and his wife would be safe from the fires in their home in Altadena.

“Right before four o’clock in the morning, my wife started getting a bunch of alerts on her phone, and I said, ‘Shut that off,’ cause I was trying to sleep,” Jacques said. “And then I heard this boom, I didn’t know what it was. … I went to turn on the light and realized we had no power.”

After grabbing a flashlight and making his way to the front door, Jacques, the first vice commander of Post 280, was greeted by a blast of smoke and ash as he opened the door. At the back door, he could see the fire on the hill above his house, about a mile away.

“I had a little go bag, so I grabbed some stuff out of my safe … I grabbed my dog and we jumped in our cars and we left,” Jacques said. “I was thinking, it will blow over or whatever, it won’t hit our house. And then we found out that our house had basically been leveled, destroyed, completely gutted by fire.”

‘A staple in the community.’

When approached about receiving disaster relief funds, Jacques insisted it go to someone else.

“We have a roof over our heads, we’re good,” Jacques said. “Please give that money to other Legionnaires that are going to need it more than we need it.”

With the Elders settled, at least somewhat, they’ve turned their attention to helping others.

“Now Hank and I are looking for ways we can contribute, and things we can do for other people who don’t have a place to live, and they’re bouncing around and couch surfing from place to place,” Diane Elder said.

Given Doran’s in-laws’ many years in the community, it’s no surprise that’s he steadfast in staying in Pacific Palisades.

“We will be back. We will rebuild,” Doran said.

It’s a message echoed by many in the Legion Family across Los Angeles County.

“It’s not over. The rebuilding of this city is going to be weeks, months, years down the road. We’re not out of the woods yet,” said Karl Risinger, director of the Chapter 43 American Legion Riders.

“This American Legion is going to be a staple in the community. It’s going to be a resource center,” said Department of California Commander Nick Rosa, referring to Post 283.