Rick Bordenave remembers well the day a friend came up to him about 10 years ago and asked, “How about being involved in our American Legion Post down here?”
Bordenave, of Geneva, is a Vietnam veteran. He said that as soon as he visited the post, he thought, “I should be a part of this.”
Now Bordenave recruits new members himself. “We have an awful lot of people out there that would want to join, but need to be asked,” he said. “Sometimes it takes just one little prod.”
The result is that Geneva Post 75 has grown to the extent that it has recently moved into newer, larger quarters.
Not long ago, the Geneva Post’s growth would have been considered unusual. Now it reflects a nationwide trend: Enrollment in the American Legion, after a significant dip during the 1980s, is up again. The Legion is recruiting members at a strong and steady pace, intent on soon surpassing its highest membership ever, the 3.2 million peak reached just after World War II soldiers returned home.
While several other veterans organizations report that they are struggling just to maintain their numbers, the American Legion has rebounded to 3.1 million members, after hitting bottom with 2.5 million as recently as 1984.
Even as it faces the loss of nearly 46 percent of its ranks–the World War II veterans, whose average age is 72–the Legion stands fast in its goal to achieve its biggest membership ever. According to the national office in Indianapolis, there is in fact still a large pool of about 24 million veterans, most of them Vietnam vets, who can be tapped for membership.
Founded in 1919 in Paris by members of the American Expeditionary Force as an organization dedicated to freedom and democracy, the Legion has developed into something more to its members. Patriotism, military camaraderie, benefit support and community activism are some of the reasons new members now give for joining up. And once they sign on, they often actively begin recruiting others.
“I’ve signed up 16 new members in the last eight weeks,” said Earl McIntosh, a member of the Benjamin A. Fuller Post No. 64 in Pittsburg, Kan., who said he learned about the American Legion as a young man. He played baseball throughout high school on Legion-sponsored baseball teams.
“I’ve always wanted to belong to the Legion,” he said.
An emphasis on providing community support has always been a vital part of the Legion.
Matthew Sullivan of Phoenix attended a Legion-sponsored Law Enforcement Training Academy in high school, followed by another program called Boys State in which students simulate state government. Sullivan said that after returning home from the Persian Gulf War, he wanted to join the organization that had done so much for him in his youth. “I realized that this was a bunch of people I wanted to be involved with,” he said.
The American Legion also puts a lot of emphasis on family activities. After the Vietnam War, one of the biggest reasons membership dipped was that veterans said they wanted to spend most of their time with their families.
So the Legion did some marketing surveys to find out just what veterans wanted, and has spent the last few years trying to answer those needs. Fulfilling its members’ requests is key to the Legion’s recent success, said National Commander William Detweiler. For example, he said, the Legion supports programs for child immunization, maternal and child nutrition care, and child safety; is opening halls in inner cities where the concern for crumbling families is the greatest; and is exploring the idea of launching child care facilties for working parents.
“Our posts provide an opportunity for vets to come together and lend service to their children and their neighbors’ children,” Detweiler said.
Other veterans appreciate the Legion’s staunch support of health issues that the government has sometimes tried to dismiss.
The voice of veterans
It was the Legion, said John Nelson, that commissioned a study about the harmful effects of Agent Orange. Nelson is the American Legion’s director of veterans affairs and rehabilitation in Detroit.
“They brought suit against the government for failing to deal with it,” he said.
Chad Christensen, a Desert Storm veteran and member of the Highland Park Post No. 374 in Des Moines, said he felt frustrated dealing with the Veterans Administration. But he joined the Legion because it helped him out.
“If you want something done, you go to one of the service officers of the American Legion,” he said.
An effective network
Indeed, more than one member said the line of communication within the organization is so strong that a member can depend on getting the attention of the national commander if he chooses. And the national commander has the ear of the president of the United States.
“I can go to the White House because we represent a sizable block of people,” said Detweiler. “Including the auxiliary, we have a combined membership in the neighborhood of 4.5 million, not including their families.
“Also, we have no problem being an advocate for the Veterans Administration when we think they are right. But we have no hesitation to take an adversarial position, lobby against an issue, or file suit when we think they are wrong.”
The Legion’s strong stand on health issues drew in Denise Nichols, a Desert Storm veteran and member of Wilmore-Richter Post 161 in Wheat Ridge, Colo. Nichols, like many other members, belongs to more than one veterans organization. But, she said, the American Legion welcomes its women veterans, unlike the Veterans of Foreign Wars, to which she also belongs.
She painted the VFW as an “old boys network” that was so unresponsive to issues that some members had to bring them up in a floor fight at a convention to get them addressed.
“They have a generational gap, big time,” she said.
The VFW acknowledges that it is having trouble maintaining its membership in the face of the anticipated loss of 1.1 million World War II members over the next few years.
“We’ve pretty much resigned ourselves to not being able to keep up with those losses,” said Steve Van Buskirk, director of public affairs in Kansas City, Mo. “Instead of putting an emphasis on number, we are becoming more active in the political arena, and working harder with less people.”
Legion vs. the VFW
Competition between the two largest groups, the American Legion and the VFW, is keen. Van Buskirk even suggested that the Legion might be inflating its membership numbers, though the organization was able to provide material to support its enrollment claim.
Smaller organizations, like VietNow and the Military Order of the Purple Heart, are less competitive because their membership is more selective and limited. Members of VietNow must be a Vietnam vet, while to be a member of the Military Order of the Purple Heart, a veteran has to have been awarded that medal.
Jim Stepanek, the national secretary of VietNow, said its membership has remained fairly stable since 1990 when the organization was launched. The Military Order of the Purple Heart, however, said its membership, though small, has been growing steadily over the last 7 or 8 years, at an annual rate of about 10 percent, said Michael Prothero, adjutant general. “We’re pushing to get the Vietnam vet in; that’s our largest market right now,” he said.
The American Legion also knows the numbers are out there. That’s why its officers are confident, if they provide the right atmosphere, that they can bring new ones into the fold.
`There’s a camaraderie’
And with the recent military cutbacks, they are providing familiar surroundings for members of the armed forces who took early-out deals and found themselves out of work.
Mark Burgher of Edmond Post 111 in Edmond, Okla., said that perhaps 1 million people will have left the armed forces within the next few years. The Legion provides a place where they can meet other soldiers and feel like they’re still members of the military.
“There’s a camaraderie there,” he said.
Other members cite the Legion’s patriotic bent as a good reason to join. “It is a place where we can express our patriotism,” said McIntosh. “Veterans have a better perspective and appreciation for freedom, I feel, than the rest of society.”
“The Legion does a lot to show what patriotism is,” agreed Sullivan. “A lot of people are really concerned about the fact that people aren’t as patriotic as they used to be, so they want to come together in a group that not only practices patriotism with each other, but teaches it to the following generations.”
