Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW)

VFW is the acronym for Veterans of Foreign Wars. A term or phrase becomes known by its acronym when it is vox populi and widely accepted in the culture. Most adult Americans are familiar with VFW because there are so many living veterans of foreign wars. They are honored every year on Memorial Day and the Fourth of July. The Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States is a federally chartered nonprofit corporation that lobbies in Washington and through the media for the interests of veterans. VFW is also the linchpin of programs promoting American patriotism. Patriotism through education, public events, community organizing, and public relations is the hallmark of VFW. The VFW also serves disabled veterans, lobbying for government compensation and benefits, medical services, reintegration, and employment programs. Veterans of concern to VFW may be on active duty or honorably discharged citizens of the United States who in some way participated in armed forces actions.

Background

Veterans officially chartered the VFW on September 23, 1899. Their ranks came from the voluntary organization of the Grand Army of the Republic. They were veterans of the Civil War, the Spanish-American War, and the uprising US troops led in the Philippines. The Cross of Malta is the VFW national emblem. First used by Knights in the 1500s, it symbolizes the character of soldiers: truth, faith, repentance for one’s sins, humility, justice, mercifulness, sincerity, wholeheartedness, and ability to endure persecution.

World War I was the watershed event for the VFW. This global conflagration ending in November 1918 involved seventy million military personnel including five million Americans. The VFW rapidly expanded its membership by advocating for veterans’ rights and benefits. The VFW became the leading organization exposing and denouncing communism spreading across Europe and subverting American democracy and capitalism. A short while later, thirty countries were at war again in Europe and Asia. Twelve million US military personnel were active between 1939 and 1945. VFW membership grew to 2.5 million. They centered in ten thousand local chapters or "posts" around the country; the posts served as meeting halls, hangouts, event facilities, and facilities for camaraderie. The Korean Conflict followed in the 1950s. The Vietnam War in the 1960s and 1970s split the VFW. Loyalty and patriotic duty to country overshadowed the antiwar sentiment of the public and many Vietnam War veterans. Posts were divided with some not accepting Vietnam War vets. Vietnam War veterans refused to join the VFW because of its support for the Vietnam War and the vets of the new-age generation with its counter-culture perspective that fought in an unpopular war. Compounding the membership enrollment stagnation was the increasingly frequent deaths of WWI, WWII, and Korean War vets.

Veterans can be a threat to democracy when they feel abandoned and unappreciated. The government cut benefits to veterans in 1934 among its cost-cutting measures in the Depression. As a result, veterans launched a protest, and the VFW mobilized serving as a vanguard and directing veterans’ energies as a powerful political interest group affecting the New Deal.

VFW Today

Most VFW members are over sixty years of age. Membership is down to about 1.6 million members of 7,500 posts. The wars in Afghanistan and Iraq left more than a million veterans. The VFW still defines its current mission as supporting active duty troops in the field, easing their transition to civilian life, and the meme that portrays them as guardians of American democracy and life. VFW lobbies for better benefits like increasing tuition assistance for higher education and retraining, protecting job rights and expanding employment opportunities, improving care for the wounded, post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) centers, classifications of disabilities, and funding research for traumatic brain injury caused by modern explosives.

The roles of women in war have changed over the centuries, and the VFW policies and attitudes have been affected. In 2014, the VFW changed its charter replacing men with veterans and widows with surviving spouses, showing that service is what counts, not gender.

VFW is addressing women’s health-care issues. Women are in combat zones and suffer no less the trauma of war than their male counterparts; sometimes theirs is worse, because of sexual harassment and the "blaming the victim" attitude that prevails in the male-dominated military judicial processes. In New York, there is a female-issue post whose thirty-some members are twenty to forty years old. One of eight male members turned to the VFW when his military wife was injured in Iraq. This post is the second one recruiting females. The first was formed in 1995 for women in the Kansas National Guard deployed to the Persian Gulf War.

The open access approach of the VFW is a sea change, since women, Japanese-American, Latino, and black soldiers suffered racial and gender discrimination for decades after World War II. The VFW was never very welcoming, made almost no outreach efforts to inform them of their veterans’ rights and benefits, and denied them membership in the VFW. In response to VFW membership exclusion, Latino veterans founded the G.I. Forum. America’s newest veterans founded the Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America lobby. Veterans of the Vietnam War and subsequent wars are involved in an imbroglio with the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs. The department has endured a plethora of scandals over bad service, inaccessibility to information, and poor relations with veterans and their families. Failed and turbulent administrations run by political appointees plus inadequate oversight by Congress have contributed to early unnecessary deaths, homelessness, dysfunctional family life, and other problems among veterans. Young veterans do not view the VFW as an aggressive advocate for veterans, but as an ideal organization for politicians, giving them a forum at VFW conventions. True or not, fair or not, the VFW still suffers an image problem among young veterans as an old white man’s social club. VFW is somewhat engaged in a culture war. Stronger, less politicized advocacy is one issue for young vets. They prefer Internet engagement over meetings, more help filing claims than making appointments, and like other Generation Y members, young vets might respond better to a VFW that offers volunteer experiences, physical health activities, and other meaningful endeavors rather than drinking at a post bar. Young vets getting active and taking on leadership roles in the VFW are necessary changes if the VFW is to survive as an organization.

Bibliography

Banks, Taunya Lovell. "Race, Place and Historic Moment—Black and Japanese American World War II Veterans: the G.I. Bill of Rights and the Model Minority Myth." Social Science Research Network. University of Maryland School of Law Research paper 2015-20, 2015. Web. 30 May 2016.

"By the Numbers: The U.S. Military." The National WWII Museum. The National WWII Museum, n.d. Web. 30 May 2016.

Hill, Adrian, and Will Davis. "VFWs Look to Attract Younger Veterans". Wright State University Core Scholar. Core Scholar Libraries, 16 Dec.2015. Web. 30 May 2016.

Klimas, Jacqueline. "VFW changes charter to be more inclusive of women vets." The Washington Times. The Washington Times, LLC, 21 Nov. 2014. Web. 30 May 2016.

Mak, Tim. "The Veterans Scandal on Bernie." The Daily Beast. The Daily Beast Company, LLC, 4 Feb. 2016. Web. 30 May 2016.

Ortiz, Stephen R. "The New Deal for Veterans: The Economy Act, the Veterans of Foreign Wars, and the Origins of New Deal Dissent." The Journal of Military History70. 2 (2006). Web. 30 May 2016.

"VFW Was Born of Battle." Veterans of Foreign Wars, 16 Sept. 2024, www.vfw.org/media-and-events/latest-releases/archives/2024/9/vfw-was-born-of-battle. Accessed 24 Jan. 2025.

Von Lunen, Kelly, ed. "To War and Back: Afghanistan: A New Generation of Veterans." VFW Magazine. Veterans of Foreign Wars, 2009. Web. 30 May 2016.