American Valor Quarterly Issue 12 - Spring 2015 | Page 7

DVDS AVAILABLE JULY 1! DVDs of Doolittle’s Raiders: A Final Toast will be available for purchase from the AVC on July 1, 2015. Copies are available with a donation to the AVC in the amount of $42. To make a pre-order, call 703-302-1012 ext. 214 or e-mail [email protected]. Doolittle’s Raiders: A Final Toast, a new feature-length documentary film from the American Veterans Center, will enjoy its first screening at the U.S. Capitol’s Visitor Center on Monday, May 18, the opening event of the G.I. Film Festival. The Doolittle Raiders, the 80 men who, under the command of Lt. Col. Jimmy Doolittle, led the first attack on Japan following Pearl Harbor, have been longtime cherished friends of the AVC. Several years ago, they established the Doolittle Tokyo Raiders “Wings of Valor Award,” to be given annually at The American Veterans Center Honors. Since World War II, the Raiders have held an annual reunion on the anniversary of the Doolittle Raid - April 18 - where they have toasted their fallen comrades and those who have since passed. Decades ago, they were presented a bottle of Hennessy cognac from 1896 - the year of Jimmy Doolittle’s birth - and agreed it would only be opened when two survived, at one final reunion. In 2012, their ranks rapidly thinning, while gathered in Washington, DC for The Honors the surviving Raiders voted to hold their final toast a moment 70 years in the making. The film was conceived by AVC Executive Director, Tim Holbert, who serves as Executive Producer on the film. “The Raiders’ final toast is a monumental piece of World Wa ȁ%$