USA TODAY International Edition
Veterans feel call to get involved
Theywant to ensure younger troops have needed support
Joel Smith returned from serving in the Army in Vietnam in the late 1960s to a cool reception.
“ I nevers aw any parades, balloons or confetti when I got home,” says Smith, 57, a loan of F cer in Burke, Va. Getting a job and raising a family were his top priorities. The idea of joining a veterans group didn’t even register, he says.
“ I just tried to make a living,” Smith says.
Veterans like Smith were soured on the big vets organizations. But time and circumstance have changed attitudes. Age has raised awareness of pension and health care concerns. Veterans whose children are grown have more time for community service. And many are determined to offer support to troops returning from Iraq that they felt was lacking when they got home from Vietnam.
So this fall, more than three decades after he left Vietnam, Smith joined the American Legion.
The legion’s lobbying in Congress was one reason. Smith says he values the work the legion does on veterans’ health care bene F ts and enjoys reading local and national legion newspapers. He also values the fellowship the organization offers old veterans.
“ You think everybody in there’s damn near 300 years old,” he jokes. “ But eventually you realize, ‘ I’m going to be that age, that generation of World War II vet.’ Now’s the time to get involved. It’s ourt urn. We’re basically at that age.”
Remembering a dark time
Today, Vietnam veterans are one- third of the American Legion’s membership and 40% of its new members. About onethird of the Veterans of Foreign Wars’ 1.8 million members are Vietnam veterans. And almost all the top leadership posts in both organizations come from the Vietnam era.
“ We remember the ’ 60s and ’ 70s as a pretty dark time,” says Thomas Bock, national commander of the American Legion. He was in the Air Force in Vietnam. “Coming back was not a positive situation.”
“ A lot of us guys initially felt like we weren’t accepted,” says Larry Kutschma, who served with the 5th Special Forces in Vietnam’s Central Highlands in 1968-69. “ The World War II vets told us that we weren’t really in a war, that we didn’t belong there. We said, ‘ The hell with you guys.’ ”
More than 25 years would pass before Kutschma joined the VFW. He’s 58 and a sales manager for a machine shop in Racine, Wis.
As late as the 1980s, when President Reagan asked John Wheelerto explore ways to help Vietnam veterans F nd housing and jobs, the feelings of alienation and not being accepted persisted. Wheeler, a 1966 West Point graduate and Vietnam veteran, said he had trouble F nding examples of successful vets because they didn’t list it on theirr ésumés, fearing their involvement in the unpopularw arwo uld be viewed as a negative in the workplace.
The legion or VFW weren’t much bettert han employers, Wheelersa ys. “The message we got from vets’ posts was, ‘ We don’t have time fory ou,’ ” he says. “ We got the cold shoulder.”
heeler, a Washington lawyer, says veterans’ desire to serve their country is strong in his generation. It’s shown in projects sponsored by Vietnam vets who build schools in Vietnam and remove land mines.
“We went to a wart hat turned out to be a very, very bad blind date,” he says. “ Itwas not our father’s war. But we have a desire to give to our country that was as intense as our dads’. It just got delayed by about four decades. You see it emerging now.”
He was chairman of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund, which built the iconic memorial wall on the National Mall in Washington.
“ There’s been a delayed reaction in this commitment to service,” he says. “ It’s the undertow running counter to the alienation many of us felt.”
‘We all learned our lesson’
At Post 521 in Owings Mills, Md., veterans old and young Q ock to the wood- paneled bar for food and drink and camaraderie. Six bucks buys a lunch of Maryland crab, soup, dessert and a table in front of the bigscreen television for the Baltimore Ravens games.
Post commander Lawrence McGinnis, 58, wearing a purple Ravens jersey, says his post is dedicated to helping troops serving in Iraq and Afghanistan. They plan to distribute $500 grocery store gift certi F cates to families of troops overseas.
“It’s much different from Vietnam. Much different,” he says. “ We all learned our lesson. No matterth e war— right, wrong, indifferent — by God, you’ve got to support the troops.
“ Fact is, because of age, we’re losing World War II vets at a huge rate. They’re dropping like Q ies. Same thing with the Korean Warve ts,” says McGinnis, a building superintendent. “ The next major con Q ict is Vietnam. Naturally, you’re going to see more of us.”
Leadership of veterans organizations by Vietnam veterans may be near its peak.
“That’s g oing t o be s hor tlived,” says Jerry Newberry, a VFW spokesman, who notes that 60% of i ts new member s are 50 or younger. Veterans of Beirut, Panama, Desert Storm and Iraq will be taking their places, he says.
David Cook, a salesman from Baltimore, says he’ll be ready to take over. Cook, 37, served in Desert Storm in the 82nd Airbor ne and is in the Army Reserve.
He’s been in the VFW for more than 10 years, visits veterans in hospitals and helps distribute calling cards that allow servicemembers to phone home. Cook says he values the VFW’s scholarship programs for high school students as much as he does the meeting hall at the post.
“ It’s not just a place to socialize,” he says. “ It’s a place to lobby forv eterans’ rights. The guys who are 88 now took care of us; now it’s time forus to take care of them.