Commander Wayne Keaton stood tall in a crisp white uniform in front of the M-60 tank outside American Legion Post 185 in Agawam, Mass. The post is struggling, he said, both to find new members and keep its building in shape to welcome the latest generation of veterans.
“We have no younger members signing up,” Keaton said. “I’m 63 and one of the youngest ones here.”
Louis Russo, chairman of Post 185 House Committee, sat in his Rollator walker next to Keaton and explained how recruitment is on the back burner because building safety is a top priority.
“We did not know how much longer we could go with that roof before we would have had to shut down,” Russo said.
Across the country and the state, veterans organizations like the American Legion and Veterans of Foreign Wars are confronting declining memberships. As they scramble to find ways to connect with new veterans, they are also coping with increasing costs to keep their posts’ buildings open.
Everything from funding, closings forced by the COVID-19 pandemic, stigmas, veteran eligibility and the passing of a generation of men and women who long sustained the American Legion, VFW and other veterans groups are on the list of mounting concerns raised by members to state Sen. John C. Velis, D-Westfield.
It’s what prompted Velis to secure funds to help sustain some Legion posts in his district, including Post 185, which received $50,000 to make building repairs.
Post 185?s big push for new members to whom leaders hope to someday day pass the baton has been a fruitless endeavor so far, Keaton said.
Velis, a major in the Army Reserve, Senate chair of the Joint Committee on Veterans and Federal Affairs and member of Westfield’s Post 124, is making the rounds of his district to visit Legion and VFW posts and listen to concerns.
“The challenge is how do we continue to expand at a time when membership is down,” Velis told the Post 185 leaders during a visit there. “I do not have the answer to that, but it is something we must spend a lot of time thinking about.”
The American Legion is a veterans service organization that traces its history back more than a century, started by World War I vets and established by Congress in 1919. Since its founding, the Legion has lobbied for veterans’ rights, including the original GI Bill that was adopted in the wake of World War II, and helped create the federal Department of Veterans Affairs.
The focus of the organization is to strengthen and enhance the lives of veterans through camaraderie, advocacy, programs and services, according to the Legion’s website, legion.org.
Albert Masciadrelli, house secretary for Post 124 in Westfield, said most posts have a small purse.
As memberships have declined, so has income from renting out halls, while the costs of maintenance and renovations on the to-do lists have risen.
On July 6, Velis also presented a $20,000 check to Post 124 to address building upkeep, but additional funding is needed, Masciadrelli said. The grant came from the state’s allocation of federal American Rescue Plan Act funding.
“The problems are horrendous. We used to have all kinds of pastimes,” he said. “We have a (youth) baseball team now, but you do not see that group come in because they do not have anything to do there is no room for it.”
Velis noted that the Legion impacted the direction of his own life after serving in Afghanistan in 2018.
“I was a lost veteran. I was not sure what I was doing in life,” he said. “This was before (when) I was not running for office. I was just John the veteran. The commander at the time came up to me and said, ‘Welcome home.’”
That’s what has him focused now on the future of Legions and VFWs across the 2nd Hampden & Hampshire District. “We can’t sit by idle as these buildings and their membership goes,” Velis said.
A contributing factor to enrollment declines is stigma and an invisible divide between veterans who served post-9/11 and those before the Gulf War-era of the 1990s, the senator said. “There is a flawed perception that it is just a dimly lit bar to drink at,” Velis said.
“Post-9/11 vets are likely to join run groups and others like it, but they’re not mutually exclusive. It’s just a matter of getting them through the doors to understand the role the legion plays,” he said.
Today, the American Legion has about 2 million members in more than 13,000 posts worldwide. In Massachusetts there are 285 posts in nine districts with 30,000 members.
The VFW, which traces its history back to 1899 and veterans of the Spanish-American War, like the Legion, has played an important role in services for veterans, including the GI Bill post World War II and recently in the passage of the PACT Act. The VFW has 5,883 posts around the world and some 1.5 million members, according to its website, vfw.org.
“We have had just handful closings,” said Milton Lashus, the Legion’s department adjutant for Massachusetts. “Although membership across the country and in state are seeing declines, locally we had good year.”
While there are concerns, “things are not as bad as they seem,” Lashus said. Most posts, he said, have met 100% or have exceeded their membership recruitment goals.
In the case of Westfield, which once had two posts, one building closed and members were shifted to 124 without the surrender of the charter.
Circumstances in Brimfield, Chicopee and Indian Orchard in Springfield were similar.
Members are meeting in other locations or merging with VFW posts or other organizations, like the Knights of Columbus, Lashus said.
Like the Legion the VFW struggles with declines but has only had a couple of closures, said William LeBeau, the Massachusetts state adjutant of VFW.
“After the (COVID) shutdown, Post 3260 in New Bedford, was not able to make the revenue, but they were in a place that had several other locations that were healthy, members were either transferred to one of those or a larger virtual post,” LeBeau said.
More vets are turning to virtual posts like in Watertown, according to Lebeau. “Those members have just donated a trolley to their veterans,” he said. “These places are getting away from the bar and doing great stuff in the community.”
“It is not all roses, but we’re not sitting back for doomsday trying to figure it out,” he said. “We are learning how to navigate and transition because these organizations are still voices that need to be heard.”
Many responsible for upkeep and memberships are World War II and Vietnam veterans, their passing comes as another major hit.
Data from U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs suggest the largest population of vets in the U.S. are the 7.8 million Gulf War-era vets, surpassing the 5.9 million Vietnam vets in 2016.
Additionally, in 2021 less than 10% of the population were among the 19 million vets and by 2046 that number will decrease 35% to 12.5 million.
Velis cited the fastest growing demographic of veterans today are woman.
The VA’s 2021 population model shows men make up 89% while 11% are women and by 2046 that will increase to 18%.
“Now, we have members of the LGBTQA, people from other countries who join our military, and we have to have the same flexibility,” LeBeau said.
Masciadrelli, who did not see combat in Vietnam but served during the era, said the impact may have come with eligibility dates. “A lot of people were turned off by that,” he said. “I was bummed by it.”
In July 2019, former President Donald Trump signed the Legion Act, extending recognition of wartime service allowing those who served outside of designated war eras to join the legion.
“Once they did away with those dates, I was able to join,” Masciadrelli said.
Numbers tend to fluctuate, but membership is strong and with the new PACT Act numbers will rise again, Lashus said.
“The act will go back 50 years and vets who were once denied become eligible and are able to reapply,” he said.
“So many veterans come back (from service) and don’t know what the next steps in life are,” Velis said. “A lot of the conversations and contacts they make here, clears that path for them. As a commonwealth and society if we let these organizations go down, we’re in for a world of hurt.”
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