I estimate that return services organizations in Australia and New Zealand only have twenty to thirty years of life left in them. Once all the World Two vets have died out there will be no one left to run return services organizations. Vietnam vets aren't going to be to keen to run the organizations that refused to admit them when they came home.
Up here the same is true. We had 16 million men under arms in WW2. The number actually in service at one time never reached past 13 million. To be 18 in 1945 you need to have been born in 1927. That makes those fellows - the youngest - about 81 in 2008.
The American Legion is the largest vets organization. It’s always been a right wing super patriot organization. Anyone with 90 days honorable service is eligible to join. I never did. Too much flag waving too anti-social. Old super-patriots. What it reminds me of and not in any complimentary fashion - Nuremberg thinking.
The VFW - Veterans of Foreign Wars - I joined in the early 1980s. Thirty years after being in Korea. So you can see I’m not an enthusiastic VFW type. I am a Life Member of the VFW. The VFW is much more progressive than the AL will ever be. AL looks BACK, VFW looks FORWARD. To my best knowledge the VFW never segregated itself but the AL did. That's UN-American IMO.
The DAV - Disabled American Veterans - requires a minimum VA rating of 10% to be eligible. I am a Life Member of the DAV. It is the ONLY organization that is 100% dedicated to improving the lot of America’s forgotten disabled veterans. (Life membership means you have paid your dues in advance).
There are a plethora of other vet organizations, at least half of which are pure frauds. Scams. But with 99.44% lack of REGULATING we make almost no effort to run them out of business. Hey, small government types prefer BIG fraud to BIG government. Eh?
That could be the seeds for further trouble because once in another twenty years or so after the returned services organizations have closed down Vietnam veterans will start to die out leaving combat vets has a very small minority of the population. The danger is that number crunchers will want to remove veterans services on this basis even thou younger NZDF personal will have served in peacekeeping roles. Judging by the number of people that attend Anzac dawn services I don't think that anything like this will happen. Rather I am just putting forward ideas for discussion. Note I in no way mean to take away from the those who have and will see service in peacekeeping roles.
Up here many - say most - small American towns are DRY. That is, they ban the legal sales of alcoholic beverages or have no sales on Sunday. That’s a base-line minimum for American Protestantism and especially of the largest denomination the SBC - Southern Baptist Conference. But state legislatures thinking ahead have thoughtfully provided a way out of this artificially induced dire straits. Private clubs!
The VFW and AL are private clubs. So while they CANNOT sell legal booze in dry jurisdictions they are permitted to allow consumption of personal booze on the premises. The private clubs make money selling what is called a “set-up.” Glasses, ice and mixers. Club members store their own booze in individualized lockable compartments - like mail boxes - large enough to hold a 1 liter size bottle - say Chivas Regal for example. Beer is another problem. During our experiment in Prohibition - 1920 to 1933 - beer was legal and sold every day. But it was by law limited to 3.2% alcohol. Normal beer is 4-5%. What came to be called "near beer."
Aside: The US Customs say any malted beverage not over 5% alcohol is defined as “beer.” If over 5% but not over 10% it is "ale." Any beverage over 10% alcohol by weight is "malt liquor." I have heard but could not prove that most private clubs would order one case of 3.2 beer and maybe a 100 cases of “regular” beer. When the ABC - Alcoholic Beverage Control - agents came checking they would be shown the case of 3.2% beer. With a “wink,” a $20 bill in the palm and an evening with your girlfriend “on the house” the ABC man would give the club a “clean bill of health.” In many parts of America this is not regarded as a criminal offense.
I believe the American Legion has about 2 million members. The VFW about 1 million and the DAV about 500,000. I do not see any of these main-line organizations being at the fore of any civilian radicalization. Too old, too fat, too rich. (And frequently, TOO drunk).
[edit on 6/30/2008 by donwhite]
