Veterans of Foreign Wars of the United States

Department of Louisiana

Office of the State Commander
Clayton P. "Sonny" DeFreese

"TO PROTECT AND SERVE VETERANS"

To My VFW Comrades:

While membership and recruiting have been and will be a top priority of this Department, as well as that of the entire VFW organization, we cannot overlook our responsibility to our number one mission -- "To Protect and Serve Veterans". In order to live up to our motto of "Honoring the Dead by Helping the Living", we must focus our attention to two things. First, we must focus on the legislative agenda of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. In doing so, we will "Protect" the benefits and entitlements that we now have and ensure that those benefits and entitlements will be here for future generations of veterans. To do this we must have political clout, and the way we ensure we have that clout is through membership. There is strength in numbers. Therefore, we must curtail the decline in membership of recent years. Secondly, we will focus our attention on service to veterans. "Serve". This will require the assistance of comrades and sisters who are able to volunteer at VA Hospitals, Outpatient Clinics, and Louisiana's five (5) War Veterans Homes. Along with service to veterans we will also focus on service to our communities and our youth. VFW program and Post participation and reporting are what keep our VFW non-profit status. This is why reporting your Post activity in all areas of service is so very important.

We have this year initiated three (3) new committees entitled "Department of Louisiana, VFW Veterans Services Committee" under the direct supervision of the duly-elected State Surgeon, Kenneth Koval, as Committee Chairman, and with the assistance of the State Chaplain, Hubert Bardelben, as Co-Chairman. This committee umbrellas all our VFW Veterans Health and Service to Veterans Programs, to include the VAVS Hospital Program, War Veterans Homes, Homeless Veterans, Service to Veterans Program, VFW State Service Officers, and Aide to Veterans Families during sickness and/or death, as well as scheduling the annual blood drives and/or health fairs at the Mid-Winter Conference and State Convention. In accordance with the National By-Laws, these are the duties of the State Surgeon. The other new committee will be the "State Military Services Committee". This new committee will encompass three programs: Military Assistance, Unmet Needs, and Operation UpLink. The chairman of this committee will be our National MAP Committee member, Kenneth Koval. These programs were consolidated by National VFW under the heading of Commanders. The third committee is entitled "Loyalty Day Program". For several years, comrades have been known by students and teachers. Therefore, I have decided that the title of this year's Category IV Americanism essay will be "How I Show My Americanism on Memorial Day".

This does not release us from the responsibility of participation in the National Loyalty Day Program. Therefore, I created the new "Loyalty Day Program Committee.

We will not only protect and serve all of Louisiana's veterans, but as a special joint project of the Department of Louisiana VFW and Ladies Auxiliary, Ladies Auxiliary Department President, Pat Evans, and myself have developed a new program that will "Protect and Serve" the comrades and sisters of the Department of Louisiana VFW and Ladies Auxiliary in times of disaster, such as the horrific Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. This program is designed to aid our comrades and sisters in finding shelter in the event of future disastrous hurricanes where massive rapid evacuation is necessary. This program will be called the P.S.C. Ernie Bryant Memorial Hurricane Evacuation Program. This program is not part of the State Disaster Relief Fund; it will be a completely separate fund designed to meet the needs of the designated hurricane evacuation Posts who volunteer to house and take care of our VFW and Ladies Auxiliary members and their immediate families.

Membership in the Department of Louisiana is a full-time job. We are fortunate that we have four Certified National Recruiters/Trainers here in Louisiana and will have two more within the next year. As a CNR/T, I learned the importance of training recruiters. I am proud to say that our Department was the first in the nation to establish a Certified State Recruiter Training Program (CSRTP). I'm equally proud of the fact that we were the first to include the Ladies Auxiliary in this Training Program. We now have over 100 Certified State Recruiters working in the field. Not all will retain their status, but those that produce results will; that is to be expected. That is why we will continue with the CSRT Program. This training program is critical to our future growth in membership. I intend to have at least one or two CSRs in each Post in the state by the end of 2008. In an effort to set the example for Post and District to follow, I have appointed a Membership Committee with the State Senior Vice Commander, Carroll Knott, as Chairman. Carroll is a CSR and has some new ideas about how we can attract new members. Each member of this committee is either a CNR/T or a CSR. Their job will be to come up with a membership campaign to collect dues, reinstate former members, and recruit new members. I have the utmost confidence in this team of recruiters and expect our Department to gain significant ground in membership during the 2007-2008 year. My membership goal this is is two-fold: first, to get our Department to 100% membership no late than December 15, 2007, and second, to bring this Department back to at least 20,000 members throughout Louisiana by State Convention in 2008. With a lot of hard work and cooperation from all levels of command, these goals are attainable. However, the one thing we must never be is lazy; we cannot afford to sit around waiting on someone else to step up to the plate. It takes teamwork, and that is the only way to accomplish our goals.

Teamwork is why we have included in our CSRT Program Ladies Auxiliary members. My idea from the beginning was the Team Recruiting concept. In other words, if you are a VFW member visiting a home of a potential veteran and the veteran is not home, then who do you recruit -- the spouse. It is a proven fact that if you get the spouse in the Ladies Auxiliary, then the veteran will follow into the VFW. The same holds true if you recruit the veteran, then at the same time recruit his spouse. If you will notice, I said "his" spouse, as our Department has not elected to allow the formation of Men's Auxiliary units. This issue may be addressed at the 2008 State Convention. Many of our younger veterans of Afghanistan and Iraq are women, and to effectively recruit these veterans into the VFW we must change the way we look at things. These veterans are not going to join a group of old men that do nothing. The men and women of this generation are family-oriented and want to do things with their spouses and children. We, as an organization, must return to the days when we were a family-oriented organization. More focus must be placed on Service to Veterans, Community Service and Youth Development projects. This is the wave of the future, and we either ride the wave or we get wiped out by the wave; it's our choice. The fact is that we must have these young veterans and their spouses, men and women, if we are to survive into the next century. We must change with the times or die on the vine. To survive, we must work together as one organization. Therefore, I pledge to support our Ladies Auxiliary State President, Pat Evans, and she, in turn, has pledged to support the VFW. Pat and many of the other leaders of the Ladies Auxiliary have already become Certified State Recruiters for the VFW; they will be helping us with membership, and we must assist them as well.

I will ask that you read your Leadership Directory carefully. Changes have been made, especially in regard to becoming a member of the All-State Team. I have rewritten the All-State Team Program, adding additional requirements that will be strictly adhered to by all Post and District Commanders. All Post Commanders and Post Quartermasters have to do is meet the membership quotas, have your Post in good standing, and participate in five programs (Teachers Award, Patriot's Pen and Voice of Democracy, Americanism Categories I-IV, and Safety Program). The same holds true for District Commanders. The highest number of points will determine the Captain of the All-State Team. All program deadline dates, including the deadline for submission of applications to the All-State Team, will be strictly enforced. Please read the program carefully so that you don't miss important points.

Many of our VFW programs are changing, while others are being deleted due to inactivity by the Posts in these programs. This is what makes the monthly community service reports from each Post so very important. Posts who do not take the time to fill out and submit a monthly report to the appropriate District and/or State Chairman are not only hurting their Post, but hurting the VFW organization as a whole. Our national organization uses the figures submitted by the Post, District, and Department each year to justify to Congress and the IRS that we deserve to retain our non-profit status. Failure to do so would eventually lead to losing our non-profit Charter. That is why, in addition to membership, I will be focusing on Post Community Service and Program reports. I strongly suggest that each Post Commander appoint one person who is computer literate to download a report from the VFW website and gather the Post activity information at the end of each month, submitting reports to the appropriate chairman either by U.S. Postal Service mail or email. Let's get the reports in and get credit for what your Post does.

I would like to take a moment to express my sincere appreciation to our Headquarters Staff. They do a wonderful job and spend many long hours working for us. In that respect, I would like to ask all the Post and District Commanders to put to positive use the publications that come out of our office. I'm referring primarily to the "Mail Call" and "Combat Veterans" publications that are filled with relevant information for your Post and should be passed on to the membership. These publications are time-consuming and expensive to produce. Let's not waste our time and money by not using these tools that our Department Headquarters has provided for you. Please take the time to read and post the "Mail Call" to your bulletin board and/or circulate among your members during meetings.

I expect for us to have an excellent 2007-2008 year as we "Protect and Serve Veterans". I pledge to you, the membership of this great Department of Louisiana, to be an active, hands-on, State Commander. I will give my all to doing the best job I can, always being professional, and using sound judgment in all my deliberations and decisions. I cannot do this alone. I need your help and support to take our Department of Louisiana back to where it should be -- at the top in Membership, Program Participation and Reporting.

Yours in Comradeship,

Sonny

Clayton P. "Sonny" DeFreese, Jr.
State Commander 2007-2008