The Lowndes County Veterans of Foreign Wars post leadership has the right ideas. It just doesn”t have the youth to prove it.
As membership at VFWs nationwide continues to decline, the men in charge of Post 4272 in Columbus are reaching out to the next generation of veterans.
They say attitudes at the post are up to date. It installed a female Vietnam veteran as commander from 2000 to 2001. The membership of 370 includes whites, blacks, Hispanics, Filipinos, Koreans and Australians. And members have fought in every U.S. conflict dating back to the Korean War.
It”s just difficult to attract young veterans.
“Young guys with families just aren”t interested right now. But we”ve got a lot of things to offer to younger vets,” said Gerry Moore, quartermaster at the Lowndes VFW and a former paratrooper with more than 700 jumps under his belt.
Of the 1.49 million VFW members nationwide, 500,000 are older than 80 and 100,000 are younger than 39. The rest are in between. And Moore says its hard to compete with work and family for a slice of young veterans” time.
“All the kids are starting families and jobs and always looking at another deployment, too. They look around and say ”Civilian jobs aren”t looking good. Hey, let”s go deploy with some unit,”” said Moore. “In previous wars like World War II and Korea, you went and stayed until it was over.”
Because so many of the troops currently in Iraq and Afghanistan are National Guard, that”s where the post has focused its recruiting efforts. And the invitation is to everyone. The leaders at Post 4272 are looking beyond the stereotypical VFW member.
“We have one female member, but I”m working on another one,” said Moore before remembering a second “young lady from the air base.”
Discrimination between declared wars and military actions is also gone.
“If you got your boots muddy, you”re welcome here,” said Luke Atkins, the post”s judge advocate and a Vietnam veteran decorated with a Bronze Star.
One could say the VFWs greatest “service” is camaraderie; providing a place where men and women meet on the common ground of their exposure to war.
“You can come here and talk freely. Talk to guys who have been through a similar experience. You can relate to them and see how they adjusted to the situation,” said Atkins. “Everybody down here has PTSD (Post Traumatic Stress Disorder). They”ve just got it to different degrees.”
The Lowndes post”s main room is filled with square restaurant-style tables with a bar tucked in the back underneath a flat-screen TV. For much of the time the room is open, from 1 p.m.-7 p.m., cigarette smoke lingers in the air while bottles of beer and whiskey rest on the bar.
Clearly, the bar is an attraction, but the VFW is about more than drinking and telling war stories. In fact, Atkins says only 10 or so members can be considered “regulars” at the bar. The rest of the members attend meetings and participate in philanthropies such as providing scholarships for local high school students, frying fish for the city”s Unity Picnic and visiting the Veterans Association hospital in Tuscaloosa. The post also hosts social events throughout the year and special celebrations on Labor Day and Memorial Day. Bingo night is every Thursday, with most of the proceeds going to operating costs for the post.
Some soldiers, like Mark Gramen, 39, didn”t need to be recruited. Following his last tour in Iraq in 2006, the Pensacola, Fla., native retired and moved to Columbus with his wife. He immediately sought out the VFW.
“I just wanted to hang out with people who have been through the experience I”ve been through. Infantry types don”t fit in with regular people,” he said.
Others take longer to come around. Even post commander Larry Maxey, a Vietnam veteran awarded the Purple Heart, took his time finding the VFW.
“I was eligible for 30 years before I ever came down here,” he said.
Jason Browne was previously a reporter for The Dispatch.
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