Area VFW chapters call for members

Area VFW chapters call for members

Nov. 11, 2000

By Melanie Brubaker Mazur
Durango Herald Staff Writer

As Veterans Day is celebrated today amid fanfare, remembrances and thanks given to military personnel who have served our country, a local veterans’ group is facing a crossroads.

Veterans of Foreign War Post 4031 in Durango is facing a shortage of members. Worse yet, some members say using their property to create the missing link of the Animas River Trail could negatively impact the post and force it to shut down.

"If we had 2,000 members, we probably wouldn’t have pressure to give our property," for the trail, said VFW Post Commander Fred Riedinger, a veteran of the Vietnam War.

Currently, the post has about 290 members and 40 members in its auxiliary unit, which is composed of wives, daughters and widows of VFW members.

The post makes money by hosting various events for members and receives donations from the Four Corners Iron Horse Motorcycle Rally. There are a few other fund-raisers, Riedinger added.

Some posts in the area have closed in the past two years, leaving six posts left in the VFW district, which stretches from Dove Creek to Pagosa Springs.

Those numbers are substantially down from the heyday of veterans’ organizations in the 1950s and 1960s, when World War II veterans actively joined the groups. Since the last "Great War," however, there have been fewer numbers of soldiers sent into foreign combat, and those who return don’t seem as interested in serving in veterans’ groups.

"I’m guessing part of it was the ’60s," Riedinger said. "When I came home from Vietnam, I was spit upon."

School children today don’t learn as much about the sacrifices made for freedom by veterans in past wars, he said.

That concern is seconded by John Hardardt, commander of American Legion Post 28 in Durango.

"I think it means very little," to most people, Hardardt said of Veterans Day. That’s one of the issues he’s been working to overcome since he became the post commander at the beginning of the year.

Hardardt is working with Durango schools to reinstate the tradition of students raising the American flag flown outside schools every day. The post also donated a 30-minute video about the meaning of Veterans Day to be shown in classrooms.

"It explains the meaning of the flag, what veterans are and what they did for our country," he said. "I hope every student can see it."

Post members also distribute free flags and teach flag etiquette to local scout troops and other groups.

"We want people to understand what the flag represents and how to take care of it," he said. "Their fathers, their mothers and their grandfathers fought for that flag. There’s just a lack of education. We don’t want to talk about wars, but this is our country, and we had to go defend it. And hundreds of thousands of people gave their lives to do that."

The American Legion doesn’t have the membership problems facing the VFW because any honorably discharged veteran or reservist is welcome to join, Hardardt explained. There currently are 225 members in the post, but 17 members have died this year.

"We’d love to have more members," he said. The Legion is on healthy financial footing and donates $7,500 annually to local charities, he added.

Both vets’ groups celebrated important victories this year. The first was the visit of the traveling Vietnam Memorial wall in Gateway Park over Labor Day. Both groups teamed with the Iron Horse Rally, who paid for the cost of the display, to bring the reproduction of the memorial in Washington D.C. to Durango. More than 6,000 people visited the traveling wall in three days, making it an unqualified success, Hardardt said.

Another improvement for vets is the approval of a Veterans Administration Clinic in Durango.

"We’ve been working with the VA in Albuquerque to bring a clinic to this area," Riedinger said. "It’s going to take strong volunteer support from vets and families using the facility."

One of the greatest needs is transportation for older veterans who can no longer drive, he said. Both groups are working with La Plata County Manager Michael Scannell to secure a van for volunteers to transport vets to medical appointments. The clinic is scheduled to be operating by 2001.

Although there have been numerous successes, the VFW post financially gets by "from month to month," Riedinger said, adding that the VFW could be in better financial shape if more area veterans simply joined the group.

Riedinger said the VFW building, which vets constructed themselves after World War II, plays an important role in the community.

"People really don’t understand the great use this facility gets in the local community," he said. Churches, nonprofit groups and others use the building, free of charge, for meetings.

"We’re really disillusioned the community just doesn’t appear to have any feeling for what we’ve given the community and the nation," he said.

Veterans Day: Booms away!