BROWNSVILLE RESIDENTS ARE STAKEHOLDERS IN THE VFW

Anonymous said...

Why should anyone care what the vets do at the VFW?

July 24, 2015 at 2:14 p.m.

By Juan Montoya

We got that comment in response to a post describing the efforts of some local combat veterans who have been trying to set VFW Post 2035 running straight.

They have taken their complaints to the district and national VFW organization in hopes that their pleas will be heard. Aside from some people wearing military citations and ribbons that aren't listed on their discharge papers (DD214), there's also documentation that a number of people who were recruited to the organization do not qualify for membership.

The national bylaws for the VFW state that membership is open to: "Those serving honorably in the U.S. Armed Forces in a foreign war or overseas operation recognized by a campaign medal, in Korea after June 30, 1949, and recipients of hostile-fire or imminent danger pay. Veterans of World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Grenada, Panama, Lebanon, Persian Gulf and Iraq, Kosovo, Afghanistan and other smaller expeditionary campaigns, as well as occupation duty, qualify."

Some of the vets who want to clean up the local VFW say that a good number of people recruited to be members there served in peace time in places like Panama, Okinawa, and Germany and did not face hostile fire as is required by the bylaws of this service organization. The VFW is different in that unlike the American Legion, the membership is limited to those who served in the military and saw combat. VFW memebers can jon the Legio, but not necessarily the other way around."

So, in response to the query above, many people may not know that the City of Brownsville (that is, all its residents and taxpayers) extended a $1 a year lease for 99 years for the property where the new post was built to help the vets out.

So in a sense, the residents of the city are all stakeholders in the local post and as such deserve to expect that the organization conduct itself with integrity and honor befitting those who have sacrificed themselves to fighting this nation's wars.

"When you have people who are running the show allowing people who don't qualify for membership to vote in their officers' elections, you do a disservice to those who gave of themselves and risked their lives for all of us," said one of the veterans in the group who have tried to correct some of the alleged misdeeds of the past.

There have always been rumors of fiscal mismanagement, some members taking money, etc.

"To me, standing up for the VFW is like the saying 'my country right or wrong,'" he said. "But there is also another part to that saying. It's 'when it's right, to keep it right. When it's wrong, to set it right."

It is no secret that when the VFW moved from its former location at the corner of Los Ebanos and Paredes Line Road to its new site, the members encumbered the service organization with a huge debt (rumored to be over $300,00) which they have been unable to pay off in time. The IBC bank holding the note has been lenient with the club refinancing the original note many times over.

That, plus citations by the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission for procuring alcoholic beverages from an unauthorized source and selling to underage customers, are giving the service club an unsavory rep. 

"What sets the VFW apart from other service organizations is that it holds the veterans who served in combat with the highest honor and respect," said another. "In the very fullest sense of the word, it is a sacred trust and that trust should guide everything that is associated with it."