I can't really completely express the disdain I hold for the Veterans of Foreign Wars. At this time of year, you pass by their reps in malls and grocery stores as they peddle their "Buddy Poppies", ostensibly to raise money for vet's care.
When I was in Vietnam, I received notice that I had been inducted into my hometown VFW Chapter, an honor that I most certainly did not want. My goal was to get out of Vietnam, be discharged honorably from the Army and get on with my life.
I wrote them asking to be dropped from the "club".
I didn't have any desire at all to get together with my fellow vets at "the hall", drink beer and play bingo and reminisce. And this sentiment was echoed by the thousands from other Vietnam troops, also "inducted in absentia". As a result, a huge wall of resentment built up in the VFW establishment, between Korean and WW2 vets and those of us from the unpleasantness in Southeast Asia.
Most of us weren't joiners. That's why, to this day, if you go to a VFW hall, you notice that the membership is dwindling faster than the Post-Dispatch's circulation base. With rare exception, the guys who sell the flowers are all vets of wars before Vietnam.
I will not relate the details of the incident that finally and completely soured me on the VFW, just that it occurred during a particularly bad time of my life and it showed to me once and for all what a sad bunch of posers and self-serving phonies the VFW attracts.
I will tell you that I once asked for help from a VFW Post Commander (a supposedly "celebrated" Vietnam-era NCO) to find work when none was forthcoming through regular channels. He just threw his hands in the air and told me I was on my own to get work, but maybe I could get some disability money from the Veterans' Administration. Free money was the very last thing I wanted. What I really wanted was the dignity of employment, but the "Sarge" didn't get it.
Nor did the VA rep to whom the "Sarge" gave my phone number. The government ass**** kept trying to find ways that I could claim a service-connected disability when I had none. I have to wonder how much tax loot pours down this endless and useless hole.
It was about the most humiliating time of my life. I finally worked it out on my own, as I have almost every life crisis I've faced. To this day, I've only ever asked for help from someone else once more.
As far as I'm concerned, the last heroic member of the "Greatest Generation" passed away on my 49th birthday when my Father, a proud veteran of the Army Air Force in WW2 (he worked in MI and cryptoanalysis in C-B-I), died.
He never joined the VFW, either.
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