The association was founded in October 1962 by Lieutenant General (ret.) Andreas Stathopoulos, Captain Yannis Vlassopoulos, and Mrs. Anastasia Karaiskou — the widow of an officer killed in the Korean War deployment of 1951. Their first meeting was held in the back room of the Café Athinaion on Plateia Plastira, with seventeen members present. Within four years the membership had grown to over four hundred, and in 1966 the association purchased the three-storey neoclassical house at Eftichidou 14 in Pagrati, which had been the residence of the engineer Petros Voulgaris until his death the previous year. The ground floor became the members hall. The first floor became the offices of the welfare committee. The second floor — which still holds it today — became the archive and library,



