VFW learning it is all veterans or none

When the established service organizations fail to adapt to take care of all veterans, they end up with shrinking numbers resulting in less power to be heard by Washington. Above that they understand that as an organization helping veterans, they need to change the way they do things to fit the needs of newer veterans as well as older ones.

VFW seeks reform of image as old man's drinking club by reaching out to younger vets, women

HEATHER HOLLINGSWORTH
Associated Press
December 29, 2010, 7:42 a.m.

LEAVENWORTH, Kan. (AP) — The Veterans of Foreign Wars' post in Leavenworth traditionally was dominated by aged ex-servicemen. But in recent years a revolution has occurred in the Kansas Army town, with a new young leadership transforming the post into a center providing support and entertainment for male and female veterans of all ages and conflicts.

It's a scene that the VFW, considered the nation's largest and most active organization advocating for military veterans, is burnishing as several hundred thousand of its mainstay members — World War II veterans — die each year.

"We have to battle that perception that we are an old man's club," said Lynn W. Rolf III, a 36-year-old Iraq war veteran and the commander of the Leavenworth post. "We have to transform ourselves or we won't survive."

Since its peak membership in 1992, the VFW's ranks have fallen from 2.17 million to 1.49 million nationwide. About 500,000 of its members are above the age of 80 while just about 100,000 are under the age of 39.

John Barrett said the WWII vets at an Alabama post treated him with such disregard when he returned from Vietnam that he turned his back on the organization back in the 1970s.

"They said it wasn't a real war, that we just went over there and messed around, that we were nothing but a police action and we didn't see what they called 'real combat,'" Barrett said.
"They called us 'baby killers,' and they didn't feel like we should even be in their organization."

When Rolf walked through the door at the Leavenworth post in 2007, he found a bunch of old-timers drinking at the bar.

Sure, they understood combat and all the things that are hard to explain to people who haven't been there.

But Rolf, who had been drinking too much and had been struggling with bad memories of the war in Iraq, said members seemed more focused on what kind of liquor to stock at the bar than with providing support for returning troops and their families.

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VFW seeks reform