Legion post in peril
Closed by pandemic, 101-year-old Montoya y Montoya Post 1 struggles for survival
American Legion Montoya y Montoya Post 1 has existed through World War II, Korea, Vietnam, the Cold War, Desert Shield/Desert Storm, the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, and countless smaller battles America’s military fought during the organization’s 101 years of existence.
But an enemy called COVID-19 may be an adversary too tough to endure.
Top officers say Post 1, created just a year after World War I’s conclusion and seven years after New Mexico became a state, may have to vacate its building because health-related closures are preventing them from paying the rent and other bills that have been piling up since March.
“It’s an anxious time, not knowing exactly if we’ll get the word that we’re going to be able to open,” said Pat Patterson, the post’s adjutant.
Post 1’s commander, Harold Durr, wrote an open letter to The New Mexican last week, asking for the community’s “help” as revenue has dried up.
“Everything given to us would be gratefully accepted and used to keep our doors open for another hundred years,” he wrote.
Durr and Patterson said state restrictions on bars have closed Post
1 to visitors, most of them members and military vets who came to the Berry Avenue building to have a drink, engage in some conversation or feed money into the six gaming machines on the premises. A backroom also used to hold large gatherings, wedding receptions and such, for groups that would rent out the building.
But until and unless COVID-related public health restrictions involving bars change, Durr and Patterson said the lack of income will soon strangle the post, which has an estimated $3,000 to $4,000 in monthly bills — including a nearly $2,000 mortgage payment to the building’s owner, himself a Post 1 member.
“I feel bad about the mortgage,” said Durr, a 74-year-old Navy veteran who, like most of Post 1’s members, served in Vietnam. He helped ferry U.S. Army infantry units and Navy SEALs into hot spots in the Mekong Delta, all the way to the Cambodian border.
Durr emphasized the landlord, whom he declined to name, has been good to deal with and already has let the post skip a monthly payment.
“This man has been good to us,” he said. “A real gentleman. He’s a veteran of the Vietnam War, too. He’s told us, ‘I know what it’s like, don’t worry about it.’ But it’s something I personally feel.”
Members of the American Legion, the Veterans of Foreign Wars and other military organizations rallied last week, Durr said, to ask Gov. Michelle Lujan Grisham to rethink the closing of outlets like bars.
“They’ve let brewers and restaurants with bars open, but for some reason, they think bars are at the bottom of the totem pole,” he said.
Santa Fe and Northern New Mexico’s military history is long and proud, and Post 1 — considered a 501(c)(19) nonprofit by the Internal Revenue Service — has been a welcoming place for more than a century. Until about 13 years ago, it was located at the corner of Second Street and Cerrillos Road before moving into what was a restaurant, Durr said.
But demographics have not helped this American Legion outfit. Of more than 200 dues-paying members in Post 1, Patterson estimated only about 75 to 100 are seen regularly, and many of those are from the Vietnam era, not younger vets of more recent conflicts.
A 2019 story in the New York Times outlined changes in veterans’ organizations, noting the growth of newer and smaller groups in the post-9/11 era that focus on issues specific to those who served in those conflicts.
Durr and Patterson said they are certain Post 1 would continue even if the building were lost; Santa Fe’s other American Legion outfit exists without a building of its own. But they agonize about lost revenue that not only pays bills but goes to philanthropic efforts that have long been a staple of the group — sponsoring youth groups and athletic teams and helping vets who are down on their luck and need some financial assistance.
“We just haven’t been able to do any of that since we were closed,” Durr said.
Patterson, a Navy combat vet who served in Vietnam aboard the destroyer USS O’Brien, said the fate of Post 1 is disquieting.
In some ways, it may bring to mind another time.
“You don’t know what’s going to happen,” he said, “one day to the next.”