At a crossroads

For the better part of 60 years, when a soldier died in Spokane Valley and an honor guard was needed, the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1435 met the call, no matter the day, no matter the time.

But roughly 10 years ago, that ability to come when called upon started to change, said Bill Broadwater, the post’s quartermaster. Many, who provided the honor service for so many years, were now in need of it. On weekends, younger veterans still in the workforce could carry out the duty, but on weekdays the World War II guard was becoming too old for the duties of pall bearer.

“Sometimes,” Broadwater said, “It’s hard to get a full four-man firing squad.”

VFW posts are at a crossroads. World War II veterans, VFW’s oldest and most loyal members are dying off at a rapid rate – 1,100 a day according to Department of Veterans Affairs. Broadwater’s own post has declined in membership from 1,700 a decade ago to 939 today. Post 1435 conducts about 44 funerals a year for its own members. The departures have posts searching for new members; the most likely being soldiers returning from wars in Iraq and Afghanistan.

But the jury is still out on the latest generation of veterans. As a group, these new veterans belong to a generation not known as club joiners. It’s the same reason nonmilitary service organizations like the Elks, the Masons and Rotary are seeing a graying of their membership.

In a couple of years, VFW posts should know if they’re winning the recruiting battle. Right now the organization is offering one year free membership to new veterans. If those freebies turn into dues-paying members after 12 months, posts will be in great shape.

The message posts need to get out, said Doug Jones, commander of North Spokane’s VFW Post 51, is that the Veterans of Foreign Wars isn’t just a drinking club.

“The biggest benefit is how we go about trying to get the benefits promised to veterans,” Jones said. “What the community loses primarily is they have to pick up where we leave off in supporting veterans.”

The Veterans of Foreign Wars ranks among the most powerful congressional lobbyists when it comes to veterans benefits, which are vulnerable to cuts from one federal budget cycle to the next. Closer to home, most VFW posts provide peer advocates to help veterans work through the paperwork required for acquiring benefits. The Department of Veterans Affairs has its own advocates, but the one-on-one advocacy provided by the VFW is not something the government provides, members say.

Like the Spokane Valley VFW, Jones’ North Spokane Post 51 is losing more members to death than it can replace with new veterans. The post is down about 200 members from a decade ago. The younger enlisted soldiers have been slow to replenish VFW ranks, Jones said, but recruitment is better among National Guard and Reserve members, who tend to be a little older and more rooted in family and career. Post 51 currently has 541 members including 40 members recruited in the last year. Annual membership, which varies from post to post, is $32.45 at Post 51.

But it isn’t like the VFW hasn’t tackled membership issues before. Officers from six different posts traced their organizations recruitment struggles at least as far back as the Vietnam War. Some traced the dilemma to the Korean War. Veterans from both conflicts weren’t uniformly accepted by World War II generation vets, some of whom regarded conflicts in Korea and Vietnam as “police actions” instead of full-blown wars.

“The Second World War vets did it to the Korean and Vietnam vets and the First World War vets did it to the Second World War vets,” said Don Riegel, adjutant quartermaster for Coeur d’Alene Post 889.

At least at Post 889, Riegel said the VFW is taking a different approach to veterans returning from Iraq and Afghanistan, making sure the Post fits the veteran and not the other way around. New veterans are young soldiers whose lives center on family, and VFW posts need programs that support that lifestyle.

“They’re much more family oriented,” Riegel said of the new veterans. “If they’re married and they have little ones, they go to whatever the little ones are doing. We have to be a part of that.”

Since the dawn of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, Riegel’s post has turned its attention to helping the families of soldiers serving overseas. They’ve also made sure that returning soldiers receive warm homecomings unlike ones experienced by veterans of the Vietnam War.

Post 889 sponsors a T-ball team, and it has tried to make their building a place were families of young veterans can bring their kids.

“I think it’s changing for the better,” Riegel said. “We’re getting away from the image of the drunks who sit at the bar and smoke and cuss. We’re trying to get rid of those guys.”