Time for one unified organization for veterans

Having two organizations to represent military veterans is wrong. The VFW and the American Legion should be combined into one group and all veterans should be allowed to join without the perception of discrimination.

By Ray Hanania

During my sophomore year at Northern Illinois University, I knew my life wasn’t going the way I wanted it, so I decided to enlist in the military.

It was June 1973. Although President Nixon announced the “Paris Peace Accords” with North Vietnam in January, I was pretty sure the war was not going to end as fast as Nixon needed.

The accords turned out to be another typical Henry Kissinger debacle. As the U.S. wound down support for the South, the Communists ramped up their military invasion.

Nixon was weak, caught up in Watergate and trying to appease the Communist Chinese. He resigned on August 8, 1973.

My draft number was low. I could have avoided military service, but I enlisted in the U.S. Air Force. Despite the rhetoric, the recruiters told me I would probably be going to Vietnam as things were not working out the way Nixon had hoped. It wouldn’t be as bad, they said.

Orland Park Veterans commemorate Veterans Day. Photo courtesy of the Village of Orland Park

I had ever expectation to go to Vietnam and serve at an F-111 air force base. That wasn’t to be the case though, and the military shifted me from field medical training to dental training.

But it wasn’t up to me where I would serve. I didn’t have the choice. And the lack of choice is exactly what the military is all about. The military decides everything. They decided not to send me overseas.

Two years in, after training and assignment to an F-11 base at Mountain Home, Idaho, I was urged to trade-in remaining time for the Air National Guard. I was assigned to the Peoria National Guard where I served for 10 more years.

It never occurred to me that there is a class distinction as an active duty member of the U.S. military between those who served overseas and those who did not.

The VFW, Veterans of Foreign Wars, was only for those patriotic Americans who were dispatched to war zones, whether or not you saw action or sat behind a safe desk.

They gave me a Vietnam Era Ribbon, and I did get the G.I. bill I was promised, which helped me return to college to get my life back on track.

I was told I could join the American Legion, the subdomain of the military fraternity, where veterans who served but never left the United States could come together and contemplate how they were “less of a veteran” than those in the VFW who made the 8,000 mile trip across the pacific.

I never joined. There were some issues of racism, too, being “Arab” that I encountered during active duty, in the National Guard, and even from veterans here in the United States. Most came from non-military politicians who wore the distinction but never earned it. It was politics, driven by anti-Arab animosity from the October 1973 Arab-Israeli war and the Arab oil boycott. Clearly, like many Americans, the military was on the side of Israel, not the Arabs.

I thought they were supposed to be on the side of Americans.

Membership in the VFW and American Legion is slumping. Most of the members are older. Younger veterans who had a better sense of unity, were not joining either organization.

What we need is to merge the VFW and American Legion into one Organization that treats all active duty military exactly same. We need to take the politics out of the two organizations and end the “honorary” political appointments that give power to government officials who never served but decide the fate of veterans and their benefits.

Despite all the political rhetoric about honoring veterans, the U.S. Government does a poor job of caring for us. It’s worse for veterans today than it was when I served. At least I got the G.I. bill which basically was about $485 a month to pay for four years of college, but no other real benefits.

If I get sick, I guess I can go to the V.A. Hospital, although I’m not even sure about that.

Like government, the military treats veterans like crap, too. The politicians exploit us for political gain. Yet we become the focus of their patriotism. The public looked at us through a political lense. Some like us and some hate us.

It would be nice if we had one organization that fought for us the way we each served to defend this country, rather than have two organizations that honestly are out of touch and are living in the deep, deep past.

I am proud to have served my country honorably. I’m just not so proud of the service.

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Ray Hanania

Ray Hanania is an award-winning opinion columnist, author & former Chicago City Hall reporter (1977-1992). A veteran who served during the Vietnam War and the recipient of four SPJ Peter Lisagor Awards for column writing, Hanania writes weekly opinion columns on mainstream American & Chicagoland topics for the Southwest News-Herald, Des Plaines Valley News, the Regional News, The Reporter Newspapers, and Suburban Chicagoland.

His award winning columns can be found at www.HANANIA.COM Subscribe FREE today

Hanania also writes about Middle East issues for the Arab News, and The Arab Daily News criticizing government policies in the Israeli-Palestinian conflict.

Hanania was named "Best Ethnic American Columnist" by the New America Media in November 2007, and is the 2009 recipient of the SPJ National Sigma Delta Chi Award for column writing.

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