4x4: A time for Legion Family values
America needs The American Legion Family.
If you don’t believe me, ask the veteran who finally received our help about her long-overdue disability claim and could finally buy her son a hot meal, move out of their car and get into an apartment.
Ask the veteran at a VA medical center who was shocked by the number of patients whose only visitors were members of The American Legion, American Legion Auxiliary and Sons of The American Legion.
Talk to men and women recovering from wounds and illnesses at military hospitals and transition units to see what it means when Operation Comfort Warriors shows up with tickets – purchased through American Legion Family donations, 100 percent of which go directly to help people the fund was established to serve – to feed and treat them and their children to a Six Flags amusement park for a day.
If you are still not convinced, consider visiting Arlington National Cemetery at Christmastime, when Legion Family members place wreaths at the headstones of military men and women generations removed from anyone who personally knew them. Or talk to the doctor whose involvement in the Auxiliary’s Girls State helped her earn a Samsung Scholarship, which launched a career in medicine that allows her to treat sick veterans at the VA hospital in her community.
If you like, try to add up the hours of effort that go into the many Legion Riders fundraisers that pay for college educations for children of servicemembers who lost their lives on active duty after 9/11.
If you’re still unsure, stop by a disaster area where Legionnaires, Auxiliary members, Riders and Sons prepare food and load cases of bottled water onto trucks for displaced victims and relief workers, all while taking applications for National Emergency Fund grants.
Our family is everywhere because we need to be everywhere.
That’s why my message this year is a call to support any or all American Legion Family funds, and to keep our organizations growing strong. Thus the 4x4 Program, a campaign to raise at least $4 million and exceed 4 million members. To help now or learn more, call (800) 433-3318 or mail a contribution to American Legion 4x4, P.O. Box 361623, Indianapolis, IN 46236-1626.
The second “4” in my program is about increasing Legion Family membership to 4 million so our organizations can remain as influential and powerful as they are today. (See more on membership on Page 52 and Legion Family membership applications on Page 53.)
Compared to others, we do not devote much time and resources to promotion; we are generally too busy doing. But we have something no ad blitz can buy: the collective power of a caring, loving family that numbers in the millions, built on shared values of mutual helpfulness.
Donations to Legion Family funds this year do not simply push us toward a monetary goal; they allow us to continue serving an increasing number of people who need us, from veterans seeking help with claims to wounded troops trying to restart their lives. Every new member and every dollar raised multiplies our ability to keep serving at a time when Legion Family values are needed most.