NEC-Reports

Before I begin to tell you about what went on at the recently held Fall Meetings in Indianapolis, let me tell you what did not happen. Resolution 46 of the Spring Meetings would have cancelled our Department Charter. In May it was tabled and since it was not brought up again during those meetings, the motion to table has become the same as a defeated motion. However, the matter can be resurrected at any future meeting of the N.E.C. Therefore, it certainly behooves us to make a major change in how we do Post business to assure that the membership renewals are sent into National ahead of the target dates and to continue actively recruiting all year long, even after you achieve your annual membership goal.

In relation to that Resolution 46, I have to say that it did provide us with a lot of publicity. People who had never shown an interest in what we do down here have been asking how our Legion Year is shaping-up. Both at the National Convention and at the Fall Meetings, I have received many messages of support from other members of the NEC.

The NEC begins and ends with comments from the National Commander. Commandere Paul Morin (MA) began his remarks discussing that most important Legion activity, our service to our comrades wounded in the defense of their country. The Heroes to Hometowns program is well launched; we even have a VA&R officer working full-time inside the Pentagon.

Together with the President of the Auxiliary, Commander Paul has visited troops in the Walter Reed Army Hospital and just like his predicessors, has found that morale is high. Apparently the biggest gripe of our wounded servicemen is that the news media are not telling the American people about the good things that are going on in Iraq such as Iraqis having running water, sewage, and freedom – all of which are new experiences.

For his part, the Commander's biggest gripe is that he no longer gives testimony to joint comittees when he goes before Congress. His testimony before the Senate's Veterans Affairs Committee was unfettered and lasted several hours. On the other hand, the chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee allotted him only five minutes but allowed him to speak for ten, because the room was packed wall to wall by Legionnaires.

It does not matter how good a communicator one might be, it is impossible to explain or even list the concerns of The American Legion in ten minutes.

While talking about the medical needs of this generation's returning warriors, the Commander said that 40% admit to suffering PTSD (post tramatic stress syndrome). This could be a major problem for the vet who goes out looking for a job. Worse, the VA expects fully 75% of the returnees to exhibit symptoms within the near future. Related to getting a job is getting one's job back. Commander Paul said that we owe it to this generation of veterans to ensure that veterans' preferences work to get them their jobs back or to get new employment.

Commander Paul reiterated his emphasis upon the Four Pillars of The American Legion – national defense, Americanism, our children, and veterans' care. This is a “Back to Basics” emphasis, but that does not mean that everything we do will be done the way we have always done it.

As an example of finding new ways to be relevant in the 21st Century, we are joining with four other national veterans organizations to form Veterans Coalition, Inc. This organization will be a non-paratisan non-governmental agency created expressly to study the VA and to define how the VA should operate into the third decade of the century. It will be self-funded, independent and objective. Our partners in this endevor are the DAV, Amvets, the VFW, and the Paralyzed Veterans of America. Together, we shall be directly representing over 8 million veterans and indirectly three times that number.

The fact that we are so interested in overseeing the activities of the VA corresponds to what I have often called our being the “Loyal Opposition” to the VA. We do not oppose it, but rather want it to become all that it should be to attend to the needs of those who have gone forth in the defense of their homes, families, and their country. When speaking about private sector healthcare, Commander Paul said that private care is flawed, it has failed and become too expensive. The VA healthcare costs 35% less than non-governmental care programs and is state-of-the-art. We need to assure that it will be available to the current generation of veterans and those who come in the future.

An interesting number was provided to us by Paul. During WW-II there were between 2 and 3 wounded for every KIA. Because of access to faster and better care on the battlefield, there are fewer fatal injuries, and the current ratio is 6-7 wounded for every serviceman who is KIA. The very fact of this success on the battlefield means that the VA will have more clients in the future; these will be clients for whom the private sector will not provide the best possible medical care or possibly, any care at all --- This is the care that the VA system does provide, subject, of course, to the funding that any healthcare system requires.

Finally, the Commander asked for our continued support of three key programs during this Legion Year: the National Emergency Fund (NEF), the Children's Miracle Network, and (new this year) supporting the Auxiliary sponsosred National Veterans Creative Arts Festival.

After the Commander's introductory remarks, we had committee reports.

National Finance Committee: The Magazine has been getting $3 per member; after the dues increase goes into effect, this amount will not change. All new income will go to operating expenses. Our expenses are on track for the expected $1,000,000 defiict for 2006. Next year the budget will increase by $2 million but there will be an additional $9 million of income.

Convention Committee: There is a strong concern that some conventioneers at the 2007 national convention scheduled for Reno, Nevada will not respect the housing assignments and go outside the national convention package which is a contract between our organization and the city of Reno and its hotels. Hotels are contractually prohibited from offering rates lower than our negotiated rates for lodging during our convention dates, but some have been found to be doing just that. This leads to individual Legionnaires violating the housing assignments.
The committee reported that there are five strong bids to host the 2012 convention.

Citizens' Flag Alliance: The CFA is preparing for its next fight, the one that will come during the 110th Congress. Starting now we have to go 24-7-12 to ensure positive results in the future. As Winston Churchill once said, “Success is moving from setback to set-back without loss of enthusiasm.” This year we lost by one vote. We need to work at getting every candidate on-board so that we can eventually pick-up that one missing vote. The CFA web site shows how your Senators voted. You might want to check that listing before sending-in your absentee ballot .

Senator Hatch says that minority leader Senator Reid voted with us but held back two votes; we then lost by one. The senators representing the Democratic Party have got to be told – in the only manner they understand -- that they can not talk out of both sides of their mouths and then go against the stated will of 85% of their constituents.

Magazine Commission: At this particular moment, the Magazine is doing well. They expect to make $9 million in advertising revenue this year. The bad news is that they are forecasting a 10% increase in paper costs for 2007.

Americanism Commission: This group always has lots going on. At the Fall Meetings they were very pleased that the Samsung Scholarship awards this year benefited 20 university students with $20,000 each.

Their main concern seems to be that the PERA legislation – that is, the Public Expression of Religion Act – is having a hard time in the Senate. The House passed its version, but S-3696, the Senate version, is being held-up in committee. To remind you, PERA would make it illegal for judges to award the ACLU court costs for cases attacking the use of religious symbols on war memorials and cemetaries, for cases against the Boy Scouts of America, and for any other case challenging traditional aspects of American culture. At present, the ACLU takes on cases such as the San Diego war memorial case, invests as many lawyer hours as possible, and then presents the court with their bill. This income is a major component of the ACLU's operating budget. It comes directly from the American taxpayers, and it has to stop.

National Security Commission: The recruiting effort of the Army has resulted in hitting 100% of its goal while the National Guard is at 99% of its goal. In both cases, retention is a major contributor to success and that says a lot about the validity of what our armed forces are doing in the mid-east. The troops who have been there think that what we do is a worthwhile expenditure of American resources and assets.

The Commision had hoped for more than the 2.2% pay raise recently announced, because inflation has been in the neighborhood of 3.5%.

Children and Youth: This year our donations came to a total of $4.1 million; these monies have affected 17 million children. Since 1999, we have donated a total of $19 million, so this year's total is above average. We were also informed that the Temporary Financial Assistance Program has made 476 grants affecting 1047 children. These grants total $450,000.

VA&R Commision: Last year 6720 Legionnaires gave 947,000 hours of volunteer community service to the VA through the VA Voluntary Service Program. That is 135 hours per volunteer. The Commission hopes to increase the number of volunteers by 5% in 2007.

The Heroes to Hometowns Program has started into operation. Through this new initiative, we are doing what The American Legion has always done: provide service to returning military personnel, especially those who bear wounds received on active duty. The difference in this effort is the extent of the number of agencies with whom we are working at the local, county, state, and national levels.

One example of how we are doing our traditional task in new ways is the fact that the national organization has a full time VA&R staff member actually working inside the Pentagon.

NEC Resolution No. 1 came out of VA&R. It states that The American Legion strenuously opposes any change in dates set for the National Commander's testimony before the House Veterans Affairs Committee because such a change will make his input come after budgets have been established, not before, as is the traditional way of doing business with Congress.

Internal Affairs: The Commission reports that during the year the National Emergency Fund has disbursed $2.3 million as hurricane relief due to several different hurricanes, including Hurricane Katrina. During this same period, Legionnaires have generously donated $2.6 million, so the NEF is in better shape now than before Katrina devastated the Gulf Coast.

Resolutions from Internal Affairs cancelled the charters of two foreign posts, both in Germany and both for the same reason, that they depended upon active duty military members who are no longer residing in those communities.

The Public Relations Commission voiced the same concerns about PERA legislation as has already been reported.

Foreign Relations Commission: The Commission recommended two resolutions. One of these was Convention Resolution No. 186 “Support for Foreign Exchange Education Programs” which originated here in Mexico. It had been held over for further study after the National Convention, but now has been approved as a policy position of our national organization.

The other resolution had to do with enforcing fair-trade rules world-wide to ensure that American jobs are not lost due to unfair trade practices.

Membership and Post Activities Committee: At present, our national membership is up 100,000 members from the same time last year and renewal rates are good. The DMS – direct mail solicitation- program is on track for producing 190,000 new members; at present it has generated 106,000. The general opinion that we heard several times from different sources is that this year our membership can be expected to return to 2,800,000 or better.

The advice that was given out corresponds to a Back to Basics agenda: we are told to do membership the old fashioned way by calling, writing and knocking on the doors of our members and lapsed members. Eye to eye recruiting is really the best way to do that particular job.

Legislative Commission: To date, only two budget appropriations bills have been passed. There are eleven pending that will remain pending until after Congress comes back to Washington after the November elections. It is quite likely that these will be consolidated into one Omnibus Appropriations Bill. While that is better than running the government with continuing resolutions, it is not a solution that lends itself to effective budgeting.

One item that did come out of one of the appropriations bills passed is that The American Legion's patent on the Legion Emblem has been renewed for another 14 years. While I think this is reasonable legislation, I personally do not like the fact that this sort of item, non-germaine to the fiscal running of the federal government, would be included in the defense appropriations act.

National Judge Advocate: The one report we received that did not originate with the national commander, a Commission or Committee was the annual report of the National Judge Advocate. Lately Phil Onderdonk has been held on a tight leash time-wise, therefore his reports are not so complete as used to be the case. As usual, he reported upon at least one Dram Shop case in which an individual (not a Legionnaire) had a drink at a Legion Post, went to a VFW post for several more before going out and buying considerably more at a liquor store. When he went the wrong way on an interstate highway and suffered the accident that one might expect from driving drunk the wrong way on an interstate highway, we, The American Legion, were included in his law suit demanding damages. As almost always occurs, the Legion's corporate counsel, our National Judge Advocate, succesfully removed the Legion's national organization from the case because neither the national organization nor the department has any day to day participation in the Post's operation.

We also had a baseball case. These also come up regularly, usually alledging a player's right to play on another community's team rather than his own. Players understandably want to showcase their talents by playing with the best team in the region, but if they get cut from the better team, they also regularly cry “unfair” and go to court.

Another Dram Shop Case was dismissed when the plaintant could not find proof that he had been served at – or even any witness to say that he had been present in – a Legion Post has a restaurant and bar in operation.

The national judge advocate filed an amicus brief in a Boy Scout case where a boy who says he has gay inclinations sued the BSA for not letting him join even though he admits he never asked to join because he thought their quote religious orientation unquote would result in his being turned-down. The Scouts won that one, hands down.

A less favorable result has come out of the Pledge of Allegiance case in California. The same plaintant has filed a second suit and his judge has ruled that an opinion relating to his previous suit made by a member of the Ninth Circuit Court of Appeals can be received in evidence – even though that first suit was thrown out of court because he was found to not have a legal right to sue. Given that situation, the prior case was a “non-case” and no opinion on it should be acceptable in another court case. Unfortunately, the legal system as found in California only seems to apply national rules when it suits the politically correct agenda.

Finally, we were informed that under the Pension Protection Act, all non-profits must file their required reports annually, even when there are no pension payments to report. Failure to do so can result in cancellation of the non-profit tax exempt status, and there is no guarantee that such status will be awarded if requested again at a later date.

The National Vice Commanders all spoke briefly about their activities since the national convention and then we heard Commander Paul Morin give his closing remarks.

Once again Commander Paul emphasised the “4 Pillars” of The American Legion: national defense, Americanism, our children, and veterans' care and his three priority programs for this Legion year: NEF, Child Welfare Foundation, and the Veterans Creative Art Festival Fund. There were only 50% of Legion Posts submitting the Consolidated Annual Report during the past year. Our commander is asking that we get more intentional here and submit at least 75%. ¨This information is useful to the national organization when it tells Congress what we do and in our particular case, it will be most helpful in justifying our continued existence at a time when there are people who are not particularly friendly toward this department. Please make the effort to have a 100% response this year. It is surely something we can do.

The Legislative agenda of our organization depends upon the person to person contact of members of the Legislative Commission with their Senators and Representatives. We do not have a direct roll in that activity, because your congressmen already have a Legionnaire assigned to present the Legion's positions, but we can help by writing to our Congressmen, especially to our senators encouraging their favorable vote on the PERA legislation.

Commander Paul Morin wants to make the annual convention more of a family event; this means being attractive to the Vietnam and post Vietnam Legionnaires. Among his ideas is to change the venue of the Legion Baseball World Series to coincide with the date and location of the annual convention. As he reminded us, our convention cities all have either a major league team, a minor league team, or Triple-A farm club team. He would like to have the final game on Friday before the opening of our convention. As always, I have the 51 NEC resolutions with me should anyone wish to see exactly what was passsed at the Fall Meeting of the NEC.

Respectfully submitted,
John E. Hayes, National Executive Committeeman

N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
ANNUAL CONVENTION
JUNE 21 & 22, 2006
Chapala, Jalisco, México

This report will be different from any report I have given previously. That is, first I shall report on the high points of the recent Spring Meeting of the National Executive Committee and then I shall report on one particular Resolution and how it might affect this Department.

Commander Tom Boch opened the NEC with a report of his recent activities and the issues that are on the front burner for the National Organization. As you would hope, our national leadership is being congruent and consistent in that the issues that have been made our legislative agenda by the various National Conventions in recent years are precisely the issues that have the most importance for Commander Tom's administration. Therefore, you may well be familiar with some or most of these issues.

The first of these is the need for Mandatory Funding for VA health services. At present the budget battle must be undertaken every year as vets have to beg for adecuate medical attention.

The Second is that we want Medicare to be modified so that the VA Health Care System can be the health care provider for the veterans whose needs the VA knows so well. Combined with this, we want the VA to be able to retain for its own use any monies that Medicare would reemburse it. Presently, any such funds go into the Government's General Fund and does not benefit the VA or its healthcare system.

The Third issue is the need to be able to represent veterans – all veterans-- before Congress. In the House of Representatives the chairman of the Veterans Affairs committee, Representative Buyers, has been doing an effective job of limiting the voice of veterans service organizations. This has been done by limiting the time allocated to testimony and by rescheduling testimony so that it is heard after the most important decisions have been made relating to the nature of the particular piece of legislation. For instance, the National Commander has been offered 10 minutes to explain all of the Legion's Legislative Program where he previously was given 90 minutes.

The Fourth issue is to stop the ACLU's attack on basic core values of Americanism. To begin this, theLegion is supporting HR2679: The Public Expression of Religion Act. This would prohibit the government from paying legal fees to the ACLU when it sues to remove religious symbols from public spaces, such as war memorials, or when they have historical significance, such as the crosses which appear on municipal coats of arms, as has been the case in San Diego and other California cities.

When Commander Tom reported upon his travels, he says that morale is great ! One of the reasons for this is the medical attention our war fighters are receiving. Troops who are seriously injured in Iraq are medivaced to Europe within 24 hours and then on to the States in 48 hours. However, troops in hospital want to go back to their units rather than go home. They have told him, “We train as a unit, we deploy as a unit, and we fight as a unit. We want to go home as a unit, too.... Send us back to our units”

He also reports that the National Emergency Fund has been doing a tremendous job of assisting Legion Posts and individual Legionnaires who were affected by natural disasters last year. He is serious about increasing the NEF trust fund ... so much so that when the cell phone of the NECman from Alabama went off during Commander Rom's presentation, he assessed an immediate $25 “donation”, and he got it !!

When he spoke about a survey taken of Legionnaires, Commander Tom reported that the number one priority among our members is National Defense, followed by Veterans' Health Care. It is no surprise that those two were the top priorities, but their relative importance has flip-flopped in recent years. Commander Tom congratulated National Adjutant Robert Spanogle on having completed 25 years as Adjutant, 11 years longer than any previous individual in that job. Later, several other folks joined in offering their congratulations, along with several commemorative gifts.

There was one other matter that Commander Tom Boch brought up during his opening remarks, but it did not come at the end. Right off at the start he told us exactly how many ticks were left on the clock for this administration. At appropriate points during the rest of the Spring Meeting, Commander Tom let us know just how many seconds were left. He had a point to make and it applies to us all. We can not afford to waste our time. We need to clear for action and go to work, and we need to put-out 103% of our potential.

Citizens' Flag Alliance
Following the Commander, we heard from the President of the Citizens' Flag Alliance, MG Patrick Brady, USArmy (retired). There will be a vote in the Senate this year. That is, it will not be put off by any sub-committee action as happened in the last Congress. That is good news and the CFA believes that we are within striking range. One or two additional votes will assure passage of the Flag Protection Amendment when it comes up for a vote on June 26th. That's right, the 26th -next week; that is when we can expect to have our vote. There is still time to lobby your Senator. Contact him or her to either offer your thanks for the support being shown or to ask that the Senator to vote for the Amendment which would allow Congress to pass legislation to prevent the physical desecration of the flag of the United States.

The most amazing thing General Brady said is that there are Senators who have yet to read the actual text of the Amendment. Words have meaning and these particular words have very special meaning. They will allow what normal legislation has not.

On the Republican side of the aisle, Senators McConnell and Bennett have supported legislation to protect the flag, but they have not voted for the Flag Protection Amendment. We – you -- have to convince them that the correct procedure is to first pass the constitutional amendment which specifically allows for flag protection legislation, and then to pass the actual legislation. Anything else is simply hypocritical posturing. The Supreme Court has said that legislation not specifically allowed by a Constitutional Amendment will not be legal. Therefore, Senators who say they support legislation but do not support the Amendment are very derfinitely targets for our criticsm.

On the Democratic side of the Aisle, the majority of Senators are against this legislation, so we should be very intentional in thanking our supporters such as Senator Reid and Senator Finestein.

The next order of business was the reading of memorial resolutions for 59 distinguished legionnaires who have passed on to Post Everlasting since our last NEC meeting.

National Finance Commission
Following this, we received a report from the National Finance Commission. In 2005 there was a $15,000 deficit and the present budget appears to be headed for approximately a $400,000 deficit. They recommneded that the NEC send a resolution to the National Convention to increase the portion of our dues which goes to National from $9.00 to $13.50. On a roll call vote, this passed by a slim margin. Now, please note, this does not insure that the National Convention will increase dues, and if it does increase them, there is no certainty that they will go up by the full $4.50 suggested by the NEC. After all, since the last increase, we have enjoyed surpluses every year until the rather small deficit last year. This year's amount is noteworthy, but it only represents $0.15 per member.

While it is true that Yes, we are losing our WWII members, we should note that they are only 25% of the membership, so even if we lost them all during the same membership year, an increase of 50% would not seem to be justified.

Any increase in dues will affect this Department because we never get our membership cards submitted in a timely manner. All of the cards submitted after December 31st will cost us the higher amount even though we can not charge our members that higher amount until another Legion Year, sometime in the future.

The way our Department By-Laws are written, this Conventnion can increase dues for the 2007-08 Legion Year, but not for the 2006-07 period. Even if we decide to make a change, we shall have to do so before we know what amount the National Convention will decide to raise National's share of our dues. We know that they can increase dues up to $4.50 but we do not know how much they actually will be increased.

In any case, this Legion Year we shall have to pay higher dues out of our financial reserves for every member submitted after January 1st 2007. If we increase the 2007-08 dues at this convention but guess incorrectly, then we shall also end-up paying that difference out of our accumulated reserves for the entire year of 2007-08. This matter will be discussed further in the Finance Officer's Report.

National Convention Commission
The Convention Commission announced that the 2011 convention will be in Minneapolis. The Minneapolis package was explained in detail. The City will be providing the Convention Center, the parade arrangements, and the sum of $100,000 cash besides a large number of tickets to sporting events and discount cards for use in The Mall of the Americas. The room rates, while not the lowest in recent memory are guaranteed. Two thirds of the rooms are guaranteed to be at or below $119 and the others will be at or below $129.

Veterans Affairs and Rehabilitation (VA&R):
The Legion is prepared to join other Veterans' Service Organizations (“VSOs”) in suing the Government if the Government proceedes with its intention to offset VA disabilities payments against Social Security disability benefits. This is wrong; flat out wrong. One is compensation for wounds received performing military service while the other is a benefit related to insurance policies paid to a beneficiary after that person has paid an insuranace premium. If this offset goes into effect, it will be another Disabled Veteran Tax.

We were told about a new Legion program, “Heroes to Hometowns”. This program will provide both short and long term support to insure that returning veterans, especially those who have been disabled during military service, will be fully reintegrated into their communities.

It is not very different from our traditional concern for the well-being of our comrades, but it does try to be more inclusive, efficient, and effective in doing what we have always done so well. The effort will include new levels of colaboration with other VSOs, as well as coordination and collaboration with government entities at the community, state, and federal levels.This is based upon a very successful program currently being run by the Department of Washington.

We passed four VA&R resolutions, including one which calls for greater VA attention to the special needs of female veterans. Another would assure us that the National Commander is given sufficient time and the proper venue to report to Congress as he is required to do by the clauses of our Congressional Charter. At present, the chairman of the House committee on Veteran Affairs not only limits the time allowed to us, but for the first time in many years, he has refused to participate in joint hearings with the Senate. As a result, in this Congress we shall be getting a hearing in the Senate but not in the House of Representatives.

Americanism:
The Americanism Commission is seriously worried about illegal immigration. They are calling for “enforcement by attrition”. What this means is the enforcement of existing laws, including those that sanction employers of undocumented workers, so that there will be no incentive for immigrants to enter the country without following established legal procedures, and no incentive to stay. The Commission believes that as a result, immigrants illegally in the US will return to their countries of origin and the problem can be controlled over time.

Children & Youth:
During the past year, 1,128 children have benefitted from the Temporary Financial Assistence program. (TFA)

During the year $4,000,000 was donated to the Children's Miracle Network; this resulted in touching the lives of some 17 million children. Over the past 10 years, we have donated $20 million and I do not have a clue as to how many millions of children have benefited - - - but this is definitely a Legion program we can support.

Internal Affairs:
We were informed that as of the date of the NEC meeting, the present year's membership stood at 2,533,861. This is 18,753 behind last year, but we are not so far behind as we were previously during this Legion Year, so we might actually make our numbers if late dues keep coming in. (I think the Department of Mexico just may have taught National the words to that tune.)

Past National Commander Butch Miller called our attention to just how full the NEC room was, but reminded us that it is only a third as full when the Legion College meets there. He exhorted each Department to send the College the men and women who have the potential to be our future leaders. The prime qualification is that the Legionnaire attending the College shall have service dates after Vietnam.

During the NEC we had a special presentation by a public relations company that did a survey of two groups of Legionnaires. The first were those who renewed their membership and the other were ex-Legionnaires who had not renewed their membership. As I prepared this report, I was hopiing that the Legion's package describing the Survey would be available to us by Convention time, but I have not received it. Since the Internal Affairs folks asked that we do not extract miscellaneous details without presenting the entire study, I shall only say that both groups gave the Legion high marks – an 8.3 on a scale of 0-10. By comparison, the VA received a 7.2. Both groups feel strongly about our Four Core Missions of : National Defense, VA&R, Patriotism, and Youth Programs, but they assigned different priorities to the first two; those who have stayed with The American Legion give National Defense the No. 1 priority..

I shall be glad to make the Survey results available to the Department after they are received here.

Commander's Closing Comments:
After we had considered all of the various Commision reports and all proposed resolutions, Commander Boch summed-up what we need to concentrate upon. Time is critical; time that goes by is simply gone; it can not be revisited. We need to assure that the VA receives the funding it requires. We need to get the VA authorized as a Medicare provider to provide veterans health care by personnel specialized in precisely the problems that we have as a result of our military service.

Commander Tom stated emphatically that Representative Buyers has lied when he said the Legion has refused to testify to his committee – on one lone occasion he, Commander Boch did not attend an event to which he was invited, a vets day sponsored by Buyers, but it was not a committee meeting and no Congressmen were present other than Mr. Buyers.

The Commander called for increased vigilance to protect the country from attacks from within ... specifically those launched by the ACLU. At the same time, we need to be vigilant to restore border security.

Finally, Tom reminded us that the good we do is just a small demonstration of our ability to care for our comrades and communities. If we really show our communities what we can do, then we shall have no problem getting our membership renewals – to say nothing about further growth.

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What I have presented so far is pretty much like most of my reports. I have let you know what is going on at National and what is happening with various Legion programs. I think any NECman from any Department would report on these matters. Now I have to report on a subject that may get only passing mention from other members of the NEC, but which is of vital importance to the Department of Mexico.

RESOLVED THAT THE CHARTER OF THE DEPARTMENT OF MEXICO BE CANCELLED:
When the Internal Affairs Commission gave its report, there were, as I have reported, four resolutions. One was Resolution No. 46 which had the resolving clause: quote That the charter of the Department of Mexico is cancelled. Unquote. Resolution 46's other clause went on to explain the process by which individual Posts might choose the department they would join after this Department of. Mexico ceased to exist.

This was supposed to be a big surprise, one for which we would have no effective response. That was the way the cancellation of the Departments of Canada, Italy, and Panama Canal were presented eleven years ago. At that time the representatives of the departments affected presented no defense and their charters were, indeed, cancelled.

Luckily for us, after the Foreign Relations Commission finished its meeting on Tuesday, I picked-up on a comment made in a public area outside the commission meeting rooms. This was that Internal Affairs had decided to cancel our charter. As a result, I had most of that day prior to the meeting of the NEC to prepare a defense. I did not go to bed until after 2 a.m., but on Wednesday, I was ready.

When all was said and done, we beat-off the attack on this Department and the Department of Mexico continues to be alive. That is the good news; the bad news is that this may not be a permanent victory.

This and two other foreign departments were chartered in 1921. The first attack against foreign departments came a year later in 1922. Since that time, there have been other attacks. Only once has an attack been successful, but we have to respect that old principle of survival that says that defense must be eternal and that it only takes one defeat to cancel all the good results of previous efforts to defend ourselves. So that you will have an idea of the defense I was able to put together, I am submitting an addendum to this report which will be included in the minutes.

The $64 question is: what shall we do to defend ourselves? The answer may not be one lone item, but I know that the principle arguments against us were financial. (For an explanation, please see the addendum to this report.) To counter financial arguments we need to have membership, membership, and then more membership - - - and it has to be submitted early in the year not after the 100% target date. If we are on top of the membership report, then we shall be much safer than if we are down in the basement and only come out so late in the year that effectively no one is reading the weekly report any more.

This is possible. When Royce was Commander all the membership target dates were met. I do not remember exactly how many weeks we were number one that year, but I seem to remember a number around 40. [Webmaster correction: Royce corrected me .. .. .. we were on top 26 weeks that year .. both early and at the end. JEH]

Now is the time for each and every one of your members to go through their address books and look for eligible veterans to sign-up into the Department of Mexico. It does not matter where they live, just that they are eligible. I mean brothers, cousins, children, nephews and nieces. I mean your old neighbors and their children, cousins, nephews, and nieces. The American Legion may be the largest veterans' service organization, but it only signs-up 10% of those who are eligible. Our goal is to connect with those who make-up the other 90%, especially if they ever set foot outside the U.S. of A to visit our countries.

Now is the time for your Post Executive Committees to go through the computer print-out and mine it for the names of members who have not renewed this year or last year and while you are at it, use the sheets from previous years to mine the names of others who may have been members of the Department in years past.

Now is the time to check your Post membership lists and decide whose dues the Post will pay first and collect later. This is not the year to say, “All our members arrive after Thanksgiving, so we have nothing to turn-in”, but rather, you should say, “Joe and Jim and Rudy always ante-up once they get here, so lets steal a march and get their dues into National early.”

Now is the time to be active in the committees and commissions of the Legion. You do not have to be a delegate to the National Convention to get other Legionnaires working on issues that you know can be of importance to active duty personnel, to veterans and the families of these American Heroes. However, being a delegate just might be a good start! It has been quite a while since we have had a convention delegation made up of all the delegates we rate and all their alternate delegates.

Now is the time, right now, to draft the resolutions that you want us to present to the National Convention. Don't go home and say, “We should have delt with such and such”. Rather, start putting down the back ground “where-as” clauses, write down the basic ideas. Then talk to other delegates at this Department Convention, polish your resolution and present it to us all. Let us show the world that we are active in working for the things for which our American Legion stands.

Now is the time to believe our National Commander Tom Boch when he says that there is absolutely no time to waste as we set to doing all the tasks that we need to accomplish our goals. There is no place in The American Legion where his words are more true than in this Department of Mexico.

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
Winter E.E.C.
February 21, 2006
Guatemala City, Guatemala

There have been no national meetings since the Fall D.E.C. but the work of the American Legion has not ceased.

The Washington Headquarters is actively promoting the Legislataive Agenda which consists of the Resolutions passed at the Honolulu National Convention plus two Resolutions originating at the Fall NEC. In fact, this week the Washington Conference is being held at the same time as the members of the National Legislataive Commission meet in Washington, D.C. for the purpose of discussing our Legislataive Agenda with members of Congress. This is an important aspect of the Legion's lobbying activities even though it is not performed by the national staff.

While we have many priority issues, a variety of which I mentioned in my last report, possibly the most important matter facing our lobbyists at this time is a change in rules of the House which now severely limits our ability to effectively present our interests to Congress. The chairman of the Veterans Affairs committee has denied access by The American Legion and other veteran service organizations to testify before the committees that preview proposed legislation.

In many cases we are allowed to testify to subcommittees after legislation has been drafted and introduced as a specific bill, but we are no longer able to present our positions before legislation is drafted and introduced to Congress. This is important because we are most effective when we can affect the actual legislation rather than by introducing amendments. If proposed legislation does not coincide with our proposals, we can now only try to achieve our goals by having a veteran-friendly Representative introduce an amendment to whatever billl is being considered, but being reactive instead of pro-active is much less likely to produce the results desired by the delegates who established the Legislataive Agenda at our National Convention.

This is important because we have proven ourselves to be more insightful than the congressional staff who prepare veterans' legislation. For instance, in the last budget, Congress had to pass a supplemental funding bill for the VA just so that it could provide a minimum of services. Previously we had testified that the amount being requested was insufficient and that the absolute minimum would be an amount slightly greater than the sum of what was actually authorized plus what was later provided by the supplemental authorization. Since we, as the “loyal opposition” want to see the VA provide more than just minimal services, our testimony recommended a considerably greater amount. ($2 Billion for services and $6 Billion for the modernization of installations)

Outside of Congress, our Commander Tom Bock has been unreasonably accused by the press of attacking the free speech rights of war protesters. Possibly the cause was the need of TV news to present a story in a brief amount of time but we do not think that is sufficient reason to misrepresent our position or actions. The truth of the matter is that two different groups used the names of war casualties in their propaganda without consulting the veteran's survivors. In both cases the families complained to the protesters and then appealed to The American Legion to have us do whatever we could to prevent the protesters from using the name of their loved one. Commander Tom spoke against the unethical use of a war casualty`s name, not against the protesters' basic position or their right to protest the government's actions.

I know that this report runs long, but I would like to take a few moments to summarize the programs currently being promoted by our American Legion other than the Americanism/Children & Youth programs you surely already know about:

I.Supporting America's Armed Forces
a) The American Legion Reconnect Program: besides vists to active duty bases it includes:
-- The American Legion Family Support Network
-- Temporary Financial Assistance
-- Local Posts adoption of military Units or Families
-- The American Legacy Scholarship Fund
b) Support for Military Forces
-- Welcome home brochure
-- Support for US Army's Disabled Soldier Support System

II.Providing for our Nation's Veterans
a) Mandatory Funding for VA Healthcare
b) Budget Proposals for Selected VA Discretionary Programs for FY 2006

III.Passing on Values to the Next Generation
a) The Flag of the United States
b) The Pledge of Allegiance
c) The Institution of Marriage
d) The Boy Scouts of America
e) America's Religious History and Heritage Threatened

Our Flag, our Pledge of Allegiance, our Boy Scouts, our veteerans' memorials, our religious history and heritage, our American values --- all are under attack by activists. Chief among those who are so opposed to the values we support is the ACLU. They receive millions of dollars of taxpayer generated monies to attack our values. This has got to stop. (Civil Rights Act, 42 US Code Section 1988)

In my last report I told you that our resolution requesting the translation of VA materials into Spanish had been defeated. However, at the Fall Meetings we were told that the VA actually does have these materials printed. It just does not distribute them outside the USA. Our Washington office is trying to get more information concerning exactly which VA publications are availabale in Spanish. Meanwhile, we should do the spade-work to find out exactly which VA publications should be made available in Spanish thoughout Latin America. If it turns out that what is needed is not available in Spanish, then we might well consider doing the translation and publication ourselves. I would suggest that this might be done by individual Post Service Officers under the direction of our Department Service Officer, David Lord.

Related to the Service Officer function, I would like to include in this report a piece of information I sent to all the posts last summer. This is that the Service Officer Guide is now available on-line from National's web site (www.legion.org). How many of your service officers have downloaded their copy? How many even know that this information was circulated to all the posts? If you are not sure, I would ask that you check when you return home, and if the service officer did not get the word, not only do I ask you pass along the fact that it is available on-line, but I would think that you might consider that a review of intra-post communications might be in order.

We all know that we have been less than successful in promoting a change in the rules of the High School Oratorical Competition, but I`m certain you know this does not mean that we have nothing to do in our local schools. The Legion also has the School Award Medal Program, formerly known as the “Scholastic Äward”. This acknowledges students for academic achievment and basic good citizenship qualities of courage, honor, leadership, patriotism, and service; it can be given to students in every grade level of every school regardless of the language in which classes are conducted. I highly recommend that your post work with at least one local school. Once you start by recognizing those students who deserve to receive the Scholastic Award, it is quite likely that you will discover other ways in which you can provide service to your community through your schools.

The vast majority of the individual Departments hold Boys State every summer. Mexican schools stay in session until July so most states have held their Boys State before our mexican students are free to attend. Traditionally our response has been to send boys to Louisiana Boys State because it is held during July. In the past, the majority of the students attending Louisiana Boys State were sponsored by Mexico City`s Allan Seeger Post 2. However, I believe that other mexican posts could get a student into that program. Monterrey Post 5 has sent its students to Texas, so there you have a second possiblity for your students. The school year in Central America finishes earlier than in Mexico, so there are more opportunities for students from Central America; that is, they can go to one or another state that holds their Boys State in June or even in May.

Any post interested in sponsoring a student can get more information from me. All I need is the date when the students will be finished with school. Many states have indicated to me that they would be willing to give a scholarship to their Boys State if our posts (or the student`s family) pay the travel expensses to get the student to the location of the event. Boys State is for students about to begin grade 12. They should be able to understand basic English and have a curiosity about systems of government other than their own.

My last report told you that the Legion was undertaking a more extensive Direct Mail Solicitation or “DMS” campaign. As of the end of December they had been most successful, achieving over 90% of the goal and the Internal Affairs folks were confident that they would hit 100% of the goal before the Mid-Winter 85% target date. While this does not affect us in Mexico, it is good news for the Legion.

As always, I have brought Legion-produced materials on a variety of subjects as well as a copy of the Emblem Sales catalog which I would really like to see someone take home.

Our national organization maintains the Emblem Sales Division because a member's pride shown by wearing the Legion emblem is catching. Having these items available to the members helps identify our organization and it builds unit cohesiveness.

Finally, I would like to ask for your membership transmittals. On the one hand, members complain that they are receiving renewal reminders from Indianapolis months after they have paid the post. Delaying the submission of memberships hurts our relations with our members and it costs the Legion postage and handling expenses that literally are unnecessary. Last year we finished respectfully high among the various Departments, but we did not get there until the very end of the year. Many of our critics only ever saw us at the bottom of the membership listing. Our survival as a Department could depend upon how well we do “the membership thing”. Not only does every member count, but when they arrive at National is also important. Let's get back on top of that membership listing.

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
Autumn D.E.C.
November 5, 2005
Chapala, Jalisco

First off, I apologize for not being present in Chapala, but Hurricane Wilma did great damagae to Cancun, its hotels and its infrastructure. Because most hotels will be closed for a period of from two to four months, many people with tourism related jobs are leaving the city and there is not a sufficient number of airplane or bus seats available to meet the demand. I also am involved full time repairing the damage that 32” of muddy salt water did to my residence and business facilities.

The NEC has met three times since our Department Convention. Two of these meetings were at the site of the National Convention (pre-convention and post convention meetings) and then again at the Fall Meetings held in Indianapolis during the period of October 3-6.

Because of the interest expressed about the legitimacy of the June Department Convention, on both occasions I consulted with the National Judge Advocate, Mr. Phillip Onderdonk and each time I did so I was accompanied by another officer of the Department. (This procedure is useful in that more than one member of the Department learns about our American Legioin by getting the word “straight froml the horse's mouth” and it prevents criticism to the effect that information reported back to the DEC might have a personal “spin”.) The opinion of the National Judge Advocate is that if the presiding officer declares the presenceof a quorum, then a quorum is considered to be in existence until such time as a member of the body suggests the absence of a quorum. Once the assembly is finished, no further question of the presence of a quorum is admissible. All of this is predicated upon the requirement that the meeting be held at the time and place that has been published according to the rules of the body. On the occasion of the Fall Meetings, I was able to show Mr. Onderdonk the opinion circulated by our Department Judge Advocate; Ken Johnson. Mr. Onderdonk agreed with all the major points indicated in that communication.

Since I expect that the delegates to the National Convention will be present at the Fall DEC, I shall not comment upon Legion business done there nor upon the policy statements made public at that time.

The Fall Meetings are often important for the Legislative Program of The American Legion because it is quite common for resolutions to be presented to the National Convention to be refferred for further study by the corresponding National Commision; these Commisions meet at the Fall Meetings, and often take action on resolutions. This was the case on our resolution concerning the renegotiation of Status of Forces agreements to allow eligible veterans full access to U.S. Military installations abroad (Convention Resolution No. 160). In Indianapolis the national commision recommended that the NEC approve it and it was subsequently adopted by the National Executive committee and became part of this year's national agenda.

Other resolutions referred to the national commisions are carried-over for further study. This happened to our resolution seeking relief from weight limits placed upon packages sent to Legionnaires via the APO mail system. This Department needs to provide details to the national staff indicating when and under what circumstances veterans have been refused the use of this system. [Our resolution (Nat´l Convention Resolution 162) asks that weight limitations be eliminated for medicines, medical apparatuses, and computer equipment being shipped outside the United States to disabled veterans.]

.When National Staff indicated that the substance of our resolution was a non-issue because representatives of the VA have stated that the VA does not send medicinens outside the U.S., I kept the matter alive by questioning whether that statement meant that the VA does not send to foreign mail addresses or if they do not send medicines outside the U.S. The importance of the difference is very real for us since the APO mail does go outside the U.S., but does not go through foreign postal services. I also asked if the staff had checked with the various military services, since individuals with a medical retirement may not be using the VA system for their healthcare.

If any member of DEC has any knowledge of any occasion that a veteran has had difficulties with the APO / FPO weight limit, please advise me. I would also ask that each one of you take this matter to your posts by asking this question during one or more regular Post meetings. The only way we can make our resolution effective is by providing proof that a problem actually exists for one or more veterans. Then, as in the past, our Department can make a real difference in the lives of veterans living outside the United States.

Fellow Legionnaires, this is really a big issue. We justify our existence at National not by the strength of our numbers, but by the effect we have on Foreign Relations and the care of veterans living outside of the geographical limits of the United States and its territories.

The national organization is working to keep our membership numbers up and growing rather than declining. Each renewal is important; our problems are not so much that WW-II members are dying but that other members are not renewing. As I indicated at the Department Convention, the DMS (direct mail solicitation) program has been enhanced and National is spending a much greater amount of money on the Enhanced DMS program with some of the costs being shared by the Departments that benefit from new members acquired this way. We in Latin America do not benefit from this system, but everything else that is suggested about retaining membership applies to us as well as to the larger Departments.

In relation to this, the greatest tool that we have is the Post Membership Printout. It indicates not only last year's members, but also those ex-Legionnaires who did not renew during the year after their membership lapsed. You can mine these reports for the very valuable information that they contain, and don't throw them away at the end of the year, because the former member who did not renew this year may well still be living at the same address next year or the year after. This year's report can provide those addresses in 2006, 2007, and beyond, even though the individuals will no longer be carried on the printouts for those years.

National also recommends that the Post MembershipCommittee work especially hard twice a year, once to pull-in those renewals and then again with a campaign or special events to bring in new members. To do this and to prevent “burn-out”, National even recommends that the Post MembershipCommittee be divided into two groups, one group taking on the renewals and the other working events to bring in the new members.

Having covered these priority items, let me give a summary of what else was covered at the Fall Meeting of the NEC. Commander Tom Bock is emphasising the Four Pillars of The American Legion: Veteran Care, Children and Youth, Americanism, and National Defense.

Following the National Convention, Commander Tom went right to work, testifying before Congress and visiting38 Congressmen in three days. He reminded Congress that a year ago we recommended a VA budget greater than the VA itself was asking. We wanted $1.5 Billion added to the VA budget. By the end of the year, the VA was admitting that it was short -- by approximately $1.5 Billion. This year we are again asking for a greater VA budget and are reminding Congress of how accurate we were a year ago.

When he testified, Commander Bock also expressed our absolute support for full relief from the “Disabled Veteran Tax” (also known as “Concurrent Receipt”). He also made it clear that our Resolution 169: Support the War on Terror is right on the money when it says we can not separate war from terror. Terrorists are calling Muslems to a war against Christians, their values and their institutions around the world. Well, he says we will join the fight because The American Legion stands on the side of what is Good and Right; Commander Tom insists that given this situation, we shall win.

When discussing this year's legislative agenda, Commander Tom had quite a lot to say, especially concerning the battles we are fighting with the ACLU and their supporters. Commander Bock says that if an issue is bad for America, the ACLU stands for it, while if it is good for America, The American Legion stands for it. We are therefore in favor of military installations being able to sponsor Boy Scout activities, be they local troops or an opportunity to go camping in real wilderness. The ACLU has sued to prevent veterans memorials to display the Christian cross; the Legion supports the passage of the PARA – PublicExpression of Religion Act -- which would pull the plug on public funding of the ACLU legal suites.

When talking about the need to improve our membership numbers, Tom is up front in saying that veterans want to join effective organizations and he is definitely not shy in proclaiming that we are – because of a great number of successful programs – such an outfit. We can offer so many incentives and opportunities to the prospective member that we should be able to offer something to everyone.

A big issue at these meetings was the Legion's response to Hurricanes Katrina and Rita. The National Emergency Fund has been a tremendous presence in every area battered by nature's forces. As of the NEC meetings, they had given 1,100 grants totaling $1,100,000. During that week, the Commanders and Adjutants meeting generated $216,000 in donations and another $250,000 was donated to the NEF during the meeting of the NEC. The NEF has been giving an individual up to $1,500 and Posts received up to $5,000.

Past National Commander Bill Detweiller of New Orleans had quite a bit of information about the situation that prevailed in that city following Hurricane Katrina. He reminded us that President Bush declared an emergency two days before the hurricane hit but that local government did not respond as it should have. He compared New Orleans to the situation of Iraq where it was absolutely necessary to restore law and order immediately. With respect to the reports of toxic chemicals being widely spread throughout the area, he simply pointed at his face, asked when anyone had seen him looking so burned, and told us that his blotched red face was the result of simply walking into his home after the waters had receded.

I expect that Jack Freitag will have given a report on the Citezens' Flag Alliance and the efforts to pass a Constitutional Flag Protection Amendment, but if he has not, let me say the following: Medal of Honor recipient Major General Patrick Brady told us that just as the President has addressed the National Convention and indicated his support, he must do the same on a national level when he gives his State of the Union message in January.

General Brady also said that a great challenge for the CFA is getting fair and honest media coverage. To explain the problem, he said “Follow the money” and then commented that the pornography industry already generates revenues greater than professional sports. Supporters want what is good and decent while the opposition is in league with those who would destroy our culture. That is, those who promote relaxation of laws against pornography also attack the Boy Scouts, the display of the Ten Commandments, and the protection of our Flag. The media goes with those who stand to make money as a result of the media's support, so is it any wonder that the media regularly reports highly inaccurate news stories relating to the efforts of the CFA to pass the Flag Protection Amendment ?

When discussing who is for the Amendment and who is against it, he commented that there has not been a vote in the Senate since 9/11. There are a number of Senators who have never voted on this issue and it truly behooves us to get them on the record as being supporters.

The Americanism Commission reported that their response to the Ninth Circuit Court's decision that says requiring school children to recite the Pledge of Allegiance was to produce a Flag Etiquette kit and that to date, they have sold more than 9,000 of these through Emblem Sales. We were informed that the American Legacy Scholarship Fund now has over $1 Million and is giving out scholarship assistance to the orphans of service personnel killed while on active duty after September 11, 2001.

The Children and Youth Commission report informed us that over the past seven years more than $19 Million has been donated to the Children's Miracle Network and that as a result, 17 million children are benefited every year.

The VA & R Commission reported that a government commission has been established to study the 70,000 cases of Post Traumatic Stress Syndrome claims awarded since 1999 for the purpose of seeing if some of the 100% disability ratings given should possibly be lower. The American Legion's VA & R Commission takes the position that this may be legitimate, but only so long as the claims denied are also reviewed to be certain that no justifiable claims were denied.

The Magazine Commission reported that although paper and postage are both expected to go up in cost this year, advertising income is doing quite well. In fact, the revenue per page per year is now $15,000 greater than in the past.

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
85th ANNUAL CONVENTION
June 15-16, 2004
Puerto Vallarta, Jalisco, México

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
Winter D.E.C.
February 19, 2005

There has been no meeting of the National Executive Committee since my last report to this body. However, that does not mean that our American Legion’s national headquarters has not been hard at work.

Just this week, I participated in an extraordinary mail-in vote on an issue that could not wait until the May meeting of the NEC. This had to do with accepting an offer to participate in a no-cost sponsorship of a NASCAR entry in the 2005-2007 Busch Series of NASCAR competitions. The Legion will receive visibility and membership recruitment opportunities in exchange for including NASCAR related items to be merchandised through our Emblem Sales division. Besides good publicity, we should make some money on the sale of those items.

The American Legion has also just announced what might well become a major income producer for the charitable work we do through the national organization. Legion posts will be collecting ink cartridges for computer printers and used cellular telephones. The ink cartridges will be purchased from us for $1 each and the cellular phones for $3. Since there are some 150 million cell phones in use in the USA and they are typically replaced every 18 months, there could be a very large volume of recycled items that could result in a very nice annual income for our organization. If everyone in The American Legion Family were to collect just one ink cartridge, we could generate $4,000,000. Add all of the cellular telephones we replace to that income and we could really put some money into our charities such as the American Legacy Scholarship Fund for children of military personnel killed after 9/11/2001.

Our lobbyists are hard at work trying to get VA healthcare to be fully funded on a permanent basis instead of requiring new funding authorizations in every bi-annual budget.

The Legion is also working to eliminate what we call the Disabled Veteran’s Tax, otherwise known as Concurrent Receipt. This is not going to be easy. In fact, on January 26th our Commander, Tom Cadmus, had to take the Undersecretary of Defense for Personnel and Readiness, Dr. David Chu, to task for comments that Dr. Chu made in the sense that the VA budget is too big. Instead of recognizing that the existence of the VA health care system allows the armed forces to discharge disabled veterans before they have even recovered from their wounds, he seems to think that the VA budget is taking money away from the active duty forces and present day national defense.

Commander Cadmus’ comments included: “VA health care is an ongoing cost of war” and “America has never begrudged the expense of taking care of our men and women in uniform. … It is a moral contract that must never be broken.”

For anyone who has been watching, Secretary Anthony Princippi has left the VA and on January 27 the Senate confirmed Vietnam Army veteran Jim Nicholson as the new Secretary of Veteran Affairs. Secretary Nicholson is an attorney who served as a Ranger for 8 years and later was the U.S. ambassador to the Vatican. We feel he is eminently qualified to assume the leadership of the Dept. of Veterans Affairs.

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
Fall D.E.C.
October 25, 2004

Although the period since my last report includes the National Convention held in Nashville, TN in August, I shall be concentrating my report on the Fall Meetings recently held in Indianapolis, IN on Wednesday October 13 & Thursday the 14th.

The NEC receives reports from all of the National Committees and Commissions after their working sessions on Monday and Tuesday of the Meetings Week. Information is also passed along by the Commander and other National Officers.

The National Commander, Tom Cadmus of Michigan is somewhat disappointed with the leadership of both parties in the Senate. He had been promised a vote on the Flag Protection Amendment before the pre-election recess; it did not happen and as a result, a number of senators got off without having to go on record for or against a bill that has the approval of the House of Representatives, all 50 state legislatures, and some 82% of the general population. Now Commander Tom asks us to stay the course and keep on pushing for this important legislation, however long it may take us.

Commander Cadmus was elected September 2nd but has already testified before Congress and has been to all of the Washington area military hospitals. He is working to make the transition from active duty military to civilian as seamless as possible for those service members whose wounds will require their discharge from active duty. This includes the involvement of the Family Support Network, access to the resources of the Temporary Financial Assistance Program, and quite simply the vocation of service that exists within each American Legion Post.

During his opening remarks, the Commander touched on all of these matters as well as the need to maintain the National Emergency Fund. He used as an example the damage wrought during the late summer in just one state: Florida. The four hurricanes that hit Florida have done tremendous damage, and our local Posts have not been spared. The NEC was shown a brief video of damage to Legion owned buildings; most were completely unusable.

Finally, after speaking about all of these service projects and their related needs, the Commander made it quite clear that the theme of his year as National Commander will be “Service = Membership”. That is, we should devote ourselves first of all to the service to which we are dedicated. Then, with those bona fides we shall be able to make a most convincing argument that The American Legion is relevant to America and America’s veterans; therefore all of our veterans should belong. Commander Tom went on to say that he does not see why our membership should top out at 2.7 million members. He recalls that we have twice achieved membership in excess of 3.0 million and sees no good reason for our organization not achieving it again this year.

The National Judge Advocate usually makes an extensive report on all of his activities during the past year as well as a detailed summary of current legal cases involving the National Organization. This year he said he would limit himself to five minutes – and he kept his promise ! Mr. Onderdonk explained a newly implemented policy: that if there is no liability aspects to the case, the Legion will immediately file a motion to dismiss rather than enter into a potentially expensive discovery process. This year, four out of six cases were immediately dismissed; because we had immediately hired local counsel to file these petitions, our legal cost varied between $400 and $600 per case. In a similar case brought before this policy, the Legion has spent over $300,000 and the clock is still clicking. Usually these costs are covered by our insurance, but when there are similar expenses year after year, the premium for our insurance can go sky-high.

The only case discussed by Mr. Onderdonk was a dram shop case where a Post gave an individual one drink before realizing he was drunk. The individual then went to a VFW post where he had a drink before being cut off. Finally, he went to a state liquor store, bought a bottle, drank it and was subsequently involved in an accident. The National Organization will probably get out of the case because it does not exercise day to day control over the Post’s operation, but it looks bad for the Post involved. This is especially so because since the individual was not a paid-up member at the time of the incident the Post had no reason to sell him even one drink.

The report of the National Security Commission gave information on the status of the increase in active duty personnel: the newly approved budget will pay for an increase in the Army of 30,000 soldiers and an additional 9,000 Marines. For the first time in almost a decade the Army Reserve has missed its recruiting goal, but the shortfall was in double digits. A major problem for the Reserves is that some specialties are in such short supply in the active duty forces that the specialized reserve units are being deployed so often that they are effectively on a 50% rotation schedule: deploy a year, return home for a year or less, deploy again. This does not describe the typical Reserve unit, but for those units that are affected, civilian life between deployments is very difficult. The situation in numbers is this: of 205,000 members of the Army Reserve, 36,000 have been deployed, 300 have been wounded and 52 KIA.

The report of the National Convention Commission resulted in a very lively debate and a most unusual vote to not accept a Resolution recommended by the Commission. The issue was to limit severely the reimbursements for call-ins to next year’s Honolulu convention. The Commission’s justification was that the same thing was authorized in the spring NEC immediately before the last Honolulu convention so there was a precedent. The position of the NEC (voiced most strongly by several past national commanders, including Bruce Thieson of California and Clarence Bacon of Maryland) was that this should have been clearly established when Honolulu was bidding for the convention. Other individuals questioned the Chairman of the Commission concerning hotel rates, since we accepted the bid on the basis that rates at all hotels would be under $100, considerably below rates accepted for other recent conventions. His answer was considered unsatisfactory. Following the vote to reject, PNC Bacon called for the Commission to create a new process for evaluating bids by cities requesting the convention so that travel expenses would be included in the evaluation along with hotel rates. The Chairman closed the Commission’s report by saying that he was most confident that the 87 Conventioneers still missing in the Opryland Hotel would be found and returned to their families by Christmas. (You had to be there to understand the humor… navigation at the national convention’s principal hotel and convention facility was quite difficult.)

The report of the Americanism Commission emphasized standing policies against illegal immigration and voter fraud. These are related due to motor-voter statutes (those who apply for drivers’ licenses shall also be provided voter registration materials) and the use of the Mexican governments “Matricula Consular” by Mexican citizens (both legally in the USA and those who are not) to receive a driver’s license.

The Children and Youth report informed us that some 5,000-8,000 towns participated in the Memorial Day activities in honor of WW-II veterans and the WW-II Memorial dedicated that day. There were donations of $348,400 for children’s hospitals and twice that should be collected by the end of the year.

We were informed that the Temporary Financial Assistance program assisted 686 children (in 305 cases) with some $306,000 and that the CWF (Child Welfare Foundation) made 19 grants to non-profit agencies worth a total of $585,000.

The report of the VA&R commission reports that the VA budget of $92 B is $1.2 B greater than the President’s request but still some $1.3B less than the amount recommended by the House. The Legion’s position that VA budgeting should be via mandatory funding was re-iterated as was the proposition that the VA should be able to keep all of the money that Medicare might reimburse them for care to veterans enrolled in Medicare; we say that the VA is oriented to the vet’s needs and the vet has already paid the premium, so he should be able to use it wherever the best care can be found.

The Magazine Commission reports a $2 million surplus this year. This means that even though National’s operations budget is break-even this year, there is no likelihood that there will be a dues increase any time soon.

The National Emergency Fund reported that its assets are presently $1,300,000 but that it expects to disburse several times the $75,000 disbursed up through the end of September. Part of the reason for this estimate is the hurricane damage sustained in Florida and the Gulf Coast.

NECman Bob Procter of Florida summarized Legion activities during and following the four hurricanes that had hit Florida so far this year: 21 Posts acted as shelters, 26 Posts acted as municipal communications centers, and in general, the Legion response was up and running before either FEMA or the Red Cross arrived in the stricken areas. Just in response to Hurricane Charlie, Legionnaires donated over 11,000 hours of public service and drove some 12,000 miles. With respect to losses, there WERE losses: one post was a complete loss, another a post of 2,700 members – most of whom are over 70 years of age was not only a total loss, but will have to spend $60,000 just to clear their land of rubble, and post of 700 members suffered over $400,000 in damages,. In addition, there were 20 Posts with damages in the $20,000 to $50,000 range. This will be a bad year for the NEF because insurance coverage was not always even close to the loss; for example, the post that had to spend $60,000 to clear rubble had a $1million loss but only $500,000 worth of insurance. Also, because coverage pays by incident, if a Post was damaged by more than one hurricane, it will have to pay its deductible for every incident, not just once for damages incurred during the insurance year.

Commander Tom asks all Departments to donate $1 per member to increase the resources available to the NEF in time of need. We can not receive benefits (the Fund can only send grants to areas the President declares a disaster area) but it would be very good public relations for us to make a real effort to meet this goal of $1 per member.

Have I left anything out ? Well, sort of… Earlier I mentioned Commander Cadmus’s theme of “Service = Membership”. It seems that we also heard about membership maybe … oh, maybe some ten other times… and this is normal for the Legion. Without membership we can not carry out our programs for the benefit of our comrades, our children and our communities.

National is exhorting the Departments and Posts to send in memberships on a regular basis, and to not hold cards until more are received. Our biggest problem is getting renewals from our existing members. When someone pays his dues in August and is still getting renewal notices in February, the next year’s renewal becomes less than likely. Commander Tom recommends that each Post make certain that someone calls every member at least once a month, not to rag on renewals, but simply to remain in contact so that the member has an affinity to his Legion Post.

I think this is the right time to remind everyone that we are spending extra money this year to have a means to get the memberships from Central American Posts to National in a timely manner. That money is wasted if the Post Adjutant is not sending-in his Post’s membership as it is paid by the members.

During the past two years the National Organization has been publicizing the good results that are being achieved in Posts which have not one but two membership teams. The first works during a specific period, for example, for ten weeks from September 1st to November 11th (Veterans Day). This team is only interested in getting 100% of the existing members to renew. Then, after November 11, another team begins planning for a relatively short campaign to bring in new members. These activities would be held whenever they are most effective for that particular community. I have made this recommendation …what ? four times ? No one has said that it does not work in our communities, but I rather doubt that anyone has actually gone out and tried to use this new methodology.

We all know the old saying, “If it’s not broke, then don’t fix it” but can you really say that your Post’s modus operandi is NOT broken with respect to membership ? At present there are 13 departments at or above the November 11 membership goal of 65%, we are in second from last position with only some 43% of our members … and a whole lot of those are PUFLs. The hard truth is that we are only at 32% of the number of renewals and new members that we should be generating to meet the goal given to us by National and 24% of the renewals/new members required for the Department’s Financial Budget.

As I prepared my remarks, I did not know who might comment upon the National Convention, so let me say the following:
1.- Americanism Resolutions on the Oratorical Contest were defeated. We offered both our long standing resolution and another which took into account the Commission’s previous objections. Both were rejected.
2.- Foreign Relations: All resolutions were accepted. One was split into two separate resolutions, but then they were both adopted.
3.- Internal Affairs: We had a resolution asking that the Department’s name be changed to the Dept. of Latin America. In June a delegate from the post that originated that resolution asked to be a delegate to the National Convention; his request was honored and he was assigned to the convention committee on Internal Affairs. It is surely too bad that he did not attend the Convention or advise the Commander that someone else should be prepared to defend our point of view on his post’s resolution. This particular resolution was not rejected but was sent to the Commission for further study at the Fall Meetings. I can tell you that while I was in Indianapolis quite a number of Commission members asked me for an explanation of the issue. The result, however was that the resolution was recommended for rejection and this was accepted by the NEC.

As always, I have copies of the reports of the various Commissions and Committees that were presented to the NEC.

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
86th ANNUAL CONVENTION
June 11-12, 2004
Antigua, Guatemala

Many of the reports given at the Annual Convention cover the entire Legion year. However, it is my custom that this report covers principally the most recent matters especially the proceedings of the Spring Meeting of the National Executive Committee, and that I simply commend to you my previous reports given to the Fall and Winter sessions of the DEC. (They are posted on our Department web site, www.amlegion-mexico.org.)

The NEC met five weeks ago on May 5 & 6. I was accompanied by Alternate NEC Jack Freitag and I would like to thank him for being present, because visibility is an important aspect of public relations in our American Legion.

Commander John Breiden set the tone for the Spring Meetings with his opening remarks. He reminded us that all of the Founders had a dream and a concern for providing assistence to comrades in need; this is unchanged even after 85 years.

Commander John reminded us that the patriotic outbreak following 9-11 was pure emotion, emotion shared by all Americans. Now, we standfast and give the country leadership at a time when the emotion has past and other matters may be the cause du jour.

As he talks with returning servicemen, John has found that again and again he has been told, “TV coverage is not our experience.” This is because television news is not showing school supplies being delivered along with food and clothing. It does not show the nation-building going on in most of the country. Iraqi veterans are proud of what they have accomplished and Commander John had several stories of amputees who only wanted to be fitted with a prothesis so that they could go back and rejoin their outfits.

Unfortunately for our veterans who have been discharged because of their medical condition, the VA was found to be not ready to provide the follow-on care they deserve. Typically soldiers outprocessed in January were told by the VA that their initial evaluations would be in June. This is completely unacceptable, especially for those who are actually still recovering from their wounds. Yes, such service personnel have been discharged, even before they are recovered. This is a disgrace.

Commander John also reported that National Guard units that were called-up for 6 months have typically been extended to 9 months, then 12 months, and finally to 12 months in country. As of the first of June, there were over 164,000 reservists and guard personnel on active duty. During this last week the DOD has announced a policy that just extends the tendancy that Commander Breiden identified. Now personnel due to finish terms of enlistment within 90 days of the scheduled deployment of their unit, will have to deploy with their units and remain on active duty until the unit returns to the USA. This reflects the results of downsizing during the last 8 years of the 90s.

We who live outside the US may not always see US television, so I can only take it on faith that ABC’s Prime Time presented a very negative report on the VA health-care system. Commander Breiden reported that Prime Time said that the care is so bad that veterans should not go there for medical assistence. The Legion position is that care is generally good, but that the system needs improving. In many cases the care given is excellent, but access (or the lack of it) is a major problem. This is the result of funding decisions. From the Legion’s point of view, the greatest problem relating to the VA is under-funding. This is why we are calling for Mandatory Funding of the VA healthcare system. Other departments of the government have this, but the VA has to go to every Congress and ask or beg for the money to operate their hospitals.

The American Legion is lobbying for Mandatory Funding and we are not alone. In fact, we have joined with eight other veterans’ organizations to make common cause on this issue.

As he looked at how his year is progressing, Commander Breiden says that things could not be better ... except for membership. (I think I may have mentioned one or two times in the past that membership is the Legion’s prime concern because when we go before Congress, we have major clout because we can say, “We represent a non-partisan, non-sectarian, racially united block of 2.7 million AMERICANS.” Well, this has not changed.)

We started the year well; at the Fall Meetings we were up 100,000 from the previous year. Now we are down by 12,000. We are getting new members, but besides losing the expected numbers of WW-II Legionnaires, we are experiencing a major problem in retention of veterans who do join our ranks. Commander John gave examples of how going out and contacting known vets – our own ex-members – works. It is not just important but truly crucial that personal contact be made with the vets who have belonged and no longer see the Legion as being important to them.

As a general comment on what he wants from us, Commander John says, (imagine his Texas accent): “Yo kain’t rest – ya gotta RUN to the end of the race; give me four more months !! “

Later when he was discussing the up-coming elections, Commander Breiden said that this election may well be a closely fought affair. 30% will surely vote Democrat and 30% will just as surely vote Republican. These voters always vote their party. The election will depend on the other 40%; here we have veterans voting veterans issues. So that we may cast intelligent votes, in September there will be a special issue of the Magazine in which these veteran issues will be identified and relevant information provided. We shall do this because while the Legion may not be partisan, we are very definitely political.

We shall have a special web site “Impact 2004” accessible directly or via the main Legion site. Here blue hat Legionnaires can choose the questions that they want the candidates to answer. The top ten will be delivered to the candidates for their responses.

Citizens Flag Alliance:
When we heard from MGen Patrick Brady of the Citezens’ Flag Alliance, we were told that the Senate will probably vote by the July 4th recess. As it happens, on June 2nd the subcommitte voted 5-4 along party lines to send the amendment to the Senate for a vote. This vote will be close, but the very fact that this is an election year may find us the one or two additional votes that we need to pass in the Senate. One of these is Senator Clinton; she told our lobbyists that she was unaware that the matter would come up this year (!!) and that she would re-evalutate her position. (The House has passed this Constitutional Amendment for the fifth time.) Some of the opposition are actually floating the idea that there should be no votes on Constitutional Amendments during election years.

At this time, Senator Kerry, the one presidential candidate who can vote on the issue, is against the Flag Protection Amendment. President Bush is for it; in fact, he has sent his Attorney General to testify in favor of passage. Clinton sent his AG to testify against. General Brady says that the time has come to talk facts, not emotions or feelings. Now is the time for a national debate on Values and clear talking. He has no regard for the Senators representing North Dakota who continue to insist that they are in favor of flag protection, but that it must be accomplished by simple statute even though they know that the Supreme Court has ruled that any such statutes would be un-constitutional. They say the courts should effect any amendment (this is blatantly unconstitutional) and that the people cannot /should not amend the Constitution even though that is exactly what the Constitution itself says should be the process.

General Brady also expressed disdain for legislators who took advantage of public hearings on the Flag Amendment to promote other concerns or partisanistic bombast. He specifically named Vermont’s Leahy who accused the Administration of holding hearings on this matter to deflect public attention from other matters - - - even though he knows that the Administration does not schedule sub-committee hearings. Also mentioned was Wisconsin’s Finegold, the sub-committee’s ranking Democrat who opened the CFA hearing by talking about a completely different matter, the Marriage Amendment.

On the positive side, General Brady acknowledged that not only is there bi-partisan support but that California’s Senator Finestein has actually improved the content of the CFA’s published materials. He closed his remarks by reminding us that letter writing is always the best way to influence Congress – or in this case, specifically the Senate. E-mail does not have a postmark that tells the Senator’s staff that your comment really does come from a constituent.

Commission Reports:
During the time for reports from National Commissions, we were informed by the Magazine Commission that the Magazine costs are stable. This is good news, because so long as the Maga-zine is in good financial shape, dues increases at the National level are not likely.

The Convention Commission gave its final report on last year’s St. Louis Convention. There was a profit; when it was split between the host department and National, the national organization received $80,000.

The site for the 2009 Convention was chosen to be Louisville, Ky. The guaranteed room rate is from $99 to $109.

The report from the National Finance Commission reported that a bequest for $807,860 had been received. Not too strangely, the NEC was quite willing to accept it. The Finance Commisssion also reported that this year the telecast of the American Legion Baseball World Series will not cost us anything. Previously we paid to have it broadcast, but this year there is a sponsorship from Nascar.

The report for the VA & R Commission was given by the outgoing chair-man, Paul Morin of Massachussetts. He is giving up the chairmanship to become a candidate for National Commander.

The primary issue that The American Legion has with the VA is the lack of mandatory funding of the health care provided by the VA. Every Congress they have to fight the budget battle. Other Departments of the government have health care expense covered under the rubric of mandatory funding but when it comes to veterans’ health care, the funding is optional and budget levels must be approved for each federal budget. The American Legion is working diligently lobbying Congress to also make VA health care become subject to mandtory funding.

We consider this matter so important that The American Legion has joined with AMVETS, the VFW, and seven other veterans’ organizations so that we can effectively lobby Congress for mandatory funding of VA health care.

We also want the law to be changed so that the Department of Veteran Affairs could keep and use the monies that may be collected from Medicare and private insurance when the VA health care system provides service to a veteran.

As I have said many times, when it comes to our relationship with the VA, The American Legion is sort of like the “loyal opposition”. Often times we want the VA to receive more than its administrators dare to ask of Congress. This is because we know that a strong and well equipped VA is necessary for providing timely health care that veterans deserve.

The Foreign Relations Commission did not have a whole lot to report, but the new chairman, David Rehbein of Iowa said that by having Libya and Iraq without Weapons of Mass Destruction the world has become much safer.

The report of the Americanism Commission indicated that the Legion is seriously preoccupied by illegal immigration across both the northern and southern borders. We were also informed that the American Legacy Scholarship Fund now has $650,000 and the first scholarships have been granted to the children of military personnel killed in the line of duty.

The Children and Youth Commission reported that the Family Support Network is doing good work with the families of deployed service personnel. The Temporary Financial Help fund provided some 868 grants worth $333,600 to help needy children.

The Membership and Post Activities Committee clarified some numbers given out by Commander Breiden. We are 12,000 members behind last year, but this is with a tremendously good result from the DMS – Direct Mail Solicitation – program. Without DMS we would be down by 113,000.

I remember that last year I reported to you that we are not the only Department with a problem transmitting dues. This is still a problem at National. Some Departments are finding that membership transmittals are in the pipeline for as long as 6 months. Not only is this a violation of our ByLaws, but also, it results in having a lot of members irritated that they are still receiving renewal notices months after they have paid their dues. The Legion has spent as much as $1.87 per person in postage trying to contact members who only appear to be delinquent in the payment of their dues.

The Internal Affairs Committee reported that the National Emergency fund made 121 grants worth $218,000. In 15 years, since 1989, the NEF has paid out some $3.8 million dollars. Actually, the Internal Affairs report ran 29 pages, so there is a lot of information that I can share with you if you have a particular area of interest.

The National Security Commission believes that Quality of Life concerns relating to the active duty military is becoming critical. One particular concern is that National Guard personnel activated should be eligible for Tricare. Another, relating to the general defense budget is that we simply are not spending enough on our military services. With an increase in 7% over last year, the defense budget is only 3.1% of GDP; The American Legion says that defense expenditures should be in the range of 3-6% of GDP. With the recent increase, we have just barely reached the lower limits of the recommended levels of expenditures.

The National Legislative Commission had no resolutions. They did report that they had lobbied successfully against two pieces of legislation which would have had the effect in one case of requiring the VA to charge a $250 enrollment fee before a veteran could receive his initial evaluation. The other would have taken away certain mortgage benefits. They are working hard on the VA mandatory funding issue. In their report, the Commission went on record as saying that it is completely unacceptable that veterans in the Healthcare Priority 8 category may not be enrolled because of bugetary considerations. (At this point I heard someone mutter that the government wasn’t worried about budgetary considerations when it drafted him.)

During the time the NEC was in session, we considered 32 resolutions. As always, I have one set of these for your information.

In his closing remarks, Commander Breiden took up the issue of the non-enrollment of Priority 8 veterans. He admits that this care is not inexpensive. There would be a need for $2.8 Billion the first year and $4 Billion by the fourth year. The issue is that at the present time, the VA is being run in such a way that budget based decisions win-out over patient needs. The Legion does not believe that the $10-15 per capita increase in taxes is too much to ask if it means that as a result America can comply with its commitment to the veterans.

Finally Commander Breiden returned to the membership issue. He knows from the experience of several Departments that if we take the problem back home and personnally contact the membership team, we shall all have the results achieved by those Departments that have made a real effort to do so. He closed the NEC with an exhortation that we all run all the way to the end of the race in September.

In our own case, this means going out and finding at least another 119 members. As of June 3rd, we were in position 40 out of 55 Departments with a 91.2% of the goal of 1268 that National set for us. We have to do a bit better to make the goal we set for ourselves, but I surely hope that we can make 100% of the National goal by getting those additional 119 members.

Most of the year we have been down in the basement at number 54 or even 55 out of 55. This is a sort of visibility that we do not need. The powers-that-be look at those numbers every week of the year. If we are down in the basement 45 weeks, they will most likely never notice that we have finally gotten up into the middle of the pack. The way to make ourselves visible is to make our goal; then the light we shall be in will be quite favorable. At this point, only one Department is at or over 100%, but the next ten are over 95%, and there are another 29 ahead of us between 95% and our 91.2%- With another 120 members we could be “heroes”.

How important is this ? Well, something that happened to me might well be indicative. As soon as the NEC adjourned, everyone hit the road; within minutes there were no more “red hats” to be seen around the Headquarters building. That was when I took care of several pending matters. When I had finished, I was riding the elevator alone when Past National Commander John Geiger got onto the car. After we greeted each other, Commander Geiger looked me in the eye and said, “Your membership, John, has been pretty low this year, hasn’t it?”

I replied that yes it has been, but I had just delivered a check for what amounted to 10% of our total number of members. I felt pretty good that I could say that, but, you know, Commander Geiger did not seem very impressed.

As I walked away from the Headquarters building, all I could think about was the memory of the day that Commander Geiger walked into a FODPAL meeting with the news that within an hour the Departments of Canada, Italy, and Panama would have their charters revoked because they were too small to continue receiving the support of the National Organization. .. .. That was all I could think about .... and I knew it could happen again.

That is scary, but if we run all the way to the end of this Legion Year, we can come out on the top of the heap. - - - - What more can I say except, “Double time, MARCH ! “

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
2004 WINTER D.E.C.
March 16, 2004

During the period since my last report, there has been no meeting of the National Executive Committee; the next such meeting will be the Spring NEC during the first week in May. Having said that, I guess that I could sit down, but since the National Organization spends quite a bit on postage sending information to the Department, maybe there is an item or two that I could share with you.

First off, the eternal priority of National is that there be a Legion of veterans sufficiently large that it can perform all the functions we identify in the Preamble to the Constitution. In other words, to steal a phrase from an auto manufacturing company, Membership is Job One !

Since the Finance Officer report talks about the number of members we have recruited or retained this year, I’ll just say that at this time, when the Legion average is over 93% of quota, we are at 72%. We are number 54 out of 55 Departments. Because of our size, we only need 341 more members to make 100% of our quota. I know that some of these will eventually be paid-up members, so why not go out and achieve that status now as opposed to “later”. Coincidentally, the 341 members we need to make our quota at National is almost exactly the number we estimate as being necessary to have a balanced budget for the present Legion Year.

The care that our comrades receive when they have to go to a VA hospital has always been a priority matter for Legionnaires. The Legion is pleased that Secretary Principi has mandated that all veterans with service –connected disability will be scheduled for evaluations within 30 days of the time they make their need known to the VA. If a particular facility can not comply, they are instructed by Secretary Principi that they must arrange for care at another VA ficility, a contract facility or a hospital where a sharing arrangement exists. This applies to needs for hospitalization and out-patient care, so long as the problem relates to the service connected disability.

Our organization is concerned that the increases in the VA budget have been minimal even while we have troops in the field, but we can report that the VA health Care funding for the coming year is $1.1 Billion larger than the Administration requested. The Legion wanted slightly more, but we are pleased with the amount that has been budgeted.

We are definitely not pleased that this is a perenniel issue that must be brought before Congress every time it considers the federal budget. Other Departments of the Government have health care expenses covered under the rubric of mandatory funding, (like Social Security and Medicare are) but when it comes to veterans’ health care, the funding is optional and budget levels must be approved for each federal budget. The American Legion is working diligently lobbying Congress to also make VA health care become subject to mandtory funding. We also want the law to be changed so that the Department of Veteran Affairs could keep and use the monies that may be collected from Medicare and private insurance when the VA health care system provides service to a veteran.

We consider this matter so important that The American Legion has joined with AMVETS, the VFW, and seven other veterans’ organizations so that we can effectively lobby Congress for mandatory funding of VA health care.

As I have said many times, when it comes to our relationship with the VA, The American Legion is sort of like the “loyal opposition”. Often times we want the VA to receive more than its administrators dare to ask of Congress. This is because we know that a strong and well equipped VA is necessary for providing timely health care that veterans deserve.

As part of our service to both active duty service personnel and retired members, American Legion service officers are presently working with active duty wounded in Army hospitals. We want to be certain that those who are about to receive medical discharges will experience no problems relating to the continuity of health care provided as they begin to be part of the VA health care system. We will soon begin to provide similar services in Naval Hospitals and Air Force Hospitals.

This week Commander John Brieden has informed the participants at the Washington Conference that The American Legion will out-do its previous election year efforts to assure that the public is informed about the issues we consider important as well as having the opportunity to become informed about all the issues at play as a result of the election process.

This goes farther than a “Get Out the Vote” campaign, although individual Posts might well undertake that task. In our case, we can promote registration for receiving absentee ballots under the Federal Overseas Voter Act. Stateside Posts are asked to host meet the candidates events and the Legion web site will have a special section on issues. (www.impact04.legion.org.)

The National Organization wants to be certain that every candidate for federal office has been canvassed to ascertain what position the candidate holds with respect to the many issues on the Legion’s Legislative Agenda. We have been doing this for 14 years to support the Flag Amendment and we should continue to push that issue until the Senate approves it, but we also have to do the same type of pre-election ‘spade work’ with all the candidates. Our experience is that the earlier a candidate is pressured to go on the record, the more loyal s/he will be to that position.

We may be non-partisan with respect to party affiliation, but we do have issues of importance to our organization and its members which we shall promote at every opportunity.

An example of this is that this year we successfully lobbied to get the applicable Public Law modified so that all members of the Legion Family can use the facilities of tax exempt Posts without putting the tax exempt status in jeopardy.

Another issue is one where we have enjoyed only limited success, but it is an issue we shall not let lie until we achieve our goals. This is the issue of Concurrent Receipt, also known as the Disabled Veteran Tax. We have achieved relief for retirees with service-related disabilities of 50% or more, but we still have to win the issue for the majority of disabled veterans who have less than a 50% disability rating.

Finally, I would like to remind you that while we are a lobby promoting specific legislation on a wide variety of matters, the subject must always be germaine to the active duty military or the veteran. Every year National sends out copies of a Resolution that reuires all Departments to be reminded that Resolutions for consideration at the national convention must be germaine to our organization’s established purposes. In our case, where our resolutions may also impact our host countries, we must be especially careful to identify the aspects that comply with the Legion’s purposes. You may think that the benefits to the host country should be emphasized, but within the Legion, there are other priorities; accept this and emphasize the more general issues. Also, let me say that a Resolution can not have too much supporting information, so long as it is organized and related to the “Whereas clauses” in the Resolution itself.

If you or your Post has a Resolution you want to present to the Annual Department Convention, I would be glad to help you put it into the indicated form, but I say this with one exception. Should you wish to submit a Resolution calling for a change to the Constitution of The American Legion, please contact the Librarian at National for examples of correctly drafted resolutions. Constitutional amendments must include references to each and every place where it might affect our Constitution and ByLaws or federal legislation; leave out one reference and the Resolution will be tossed-out.

Resolutions received at national are treated based upon what they say, not what someone on Staff or a National Commission might think that the author wanted to say. In other words, the national commissions will not put a resolution into the correct form, but rather will recommend rejection based upon the fact that it is not correctly drafted. This is especially true of Resolutions purporting to amend the Constitution. At the Department level, we try to be more flexible, and I personally will be glad to assist anyone with doubts about the proper form for a Resolution.

Respectfully submitted,

John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
2003 FALL D.E.C.
October 14, 2003

Most of what I want to report corresponds to news from the Fall Meetings held at the National Headquarters in Indianapolis from Monday to Thursday of last week. I would be remiss, however, if I did not give you some feedback from the 85th National Convention held in St. Louis on August 23-28.

A year ago several long standing Foreign Relations related resolutions were inexplicably defeated rather than being renewed.

In St. Louis this was corrected when the Convention passed our "Free Trade Area of the Americas" resolution as amended. The amendment was the removal of two clauses relating to scholarships and people to people programs such as student exchanges. These were made into a separate resolution. Both of these resolutions then were presented to the Convention and were accepted.

At our Department Convention in June, Royce read a letter from the chairman of the Americanism Comission explaining why the National High School Oratorical contest could not include non-resident non-citizens as participants. As you surely remember, the language, tone, and content of that letter was highly insulting and even zenophobic. Well, a resolution repeating our desired changes was sent to the Convention, but once again, it had no success.

Now let’s talk about the Fall Meetings... First of all, let me comment that today at this meeting you are getting The Word sooner than any time in the past 30 years. That is, since I’ve been on the DEC, we have not had a meeting of the DEC just 5 days after the NEC held its meeting.

Commander John Breiden has been in office just 6 weeks but has already been to Washington to testify before Congress and to visit the troops at the Bethsesda and Walter Reed hospitals. He reports that moral is high and that attitudes are wonderful. After visiting these hospitals, Commander Breiden says that “No service member should ever doubt that The American Legion is supporting them.”

Related to this, the good news is that this Congress is beginning to listen to the veterans organizations and, as one newspaper has written, “The Legion is leading the charge.” Because of this, Commander John is certain that we will continue to win on the Concurrent Receipt issue. Simply by changing the terminology to call this the “Disabled Veteran Tax” we began to win-over individual Congressmen and to make important advances.

When the Administration asked for an endorsement from us for the $87 Billion supplemental budget item relating to Iraq, we said, “No. The Legion can not do that while the Administration says it can not find the additional $1.8 B we say the VA needs for a number of issues, including what is needed to eliminate the Disabled Veterans Tax.”

Commander John says we have this clout in Congress because we habe been consisten and because we represent almost 3 million veterans. Not surprisingly, he went from there to pitching what he calls Membership Momentum.

Last Wednesday was the 55% target date; at that time the National Organization was 100,800 members ahead of 2002. Good for them !
Parenthetically I have to say it pains me to say “Good for them” rather than “Good for us”. However, even including our PUFLs, we were at only 31% on the 55% target date.

Commander John is recommending that we go at membership recruiting and retention in a new way. He says, each Post should have not one but two membership teams. One should plan for and execute a 60 day campaign to contact non-renewing members between November 11 and January 11. By the end of that campaign, they should achieve 100% retention. At that point, their job is finished. Next, the Post’s “B” Team goes to work planning and then executing a 60 day campaign to attract new members. Exactly when that happens may depend upon the nature of the community – for example, Mexico City might go after new members between Mothers Day and the 4th of July, while in Acapulco the dates might be during February and March while snowbirds are in residence.

Returning to the theme that "No service member should ever doubt that The American Legion is supporting them", Commander Breiden said that he and Auxiliary President Catherine Morris will be in the field with the troops at Thanksgiving and overt the Christmas-New Year holiday period.

Related to this, he recommended that individual Legionnaires as well as Posts go to the National web site to send electronic greeting cards to relatives on active duty .. .. .. or to “any service member”.

After talking about other subjects such as the Child Welfare Foundations’s 50th Anniversary, plans for Dedication Day – that is, the day the WW-II Memorial will be inaugurated in May of 2004, and the Citizen’s Flag Alliance, Commander Breiden closed his comments to the NEC with a simple declarative sentence. We who heard him speak at the Winter DEC may appreciate that it carries a lot of “personal baggage” for John, but even if you don’t know about that, it should serve as our watchword. With the full strength of all his convictions and pride in The American Legion he proudly proclaimed, “I believe we make a difference.”

Reports from the var ious Commissions reenforced much of what Commander Breiden had commented upon.

The good news from the Magazine Commission was that advertising was $400,000 over budget and there was a $3 Million surplus overall. I consider this good news because as long as the Magazine is making money it is doubtful that we shall have any increase in annual dues.

The Finance Commission reported a $1,080,000 surplus for this year and projects a surplus of $660,000 for next year.

During the past year the Children and Youth Commission expended $260,000 to benefit 662 children under the Temporary Financial Assistance Program. An additional $339,000 was given to 13 non-profit organizations for research and programs benefiting children.

The VA&R Commission is active promoting the Legion publication entitled, “A System Worth Saving” which was written earlier this year as a white paper for Congress. They are also studying how to modify the Resolution process so that we can keep regional concerns about specific VA facilities from overwhelming or contradicting the priorities we set for our VA relations on a national level.

We were also told that the Commission has set-up a Strike Force to make visits to BA hospitals to ascertain just how we can best help them, especially with respect to the VAVS – the VA Volunteer Service program in which non-VA personnel assist at VA Outpatient Clinics, State Homes, national cemeteries, and especially in the Home Health Programs.

You have heard me describe the Legion as the VA’s “loyal opposition”. From time to time we have sued the VA or assisted those who wanted to do so. Most recently we have been active on behalf of the complaintant in Huston v. Principi. This case deals with the VA’s non-compliance with the Veterans Claims Assistance Act of 2000 (which the Legion helped develop). In passing this legislation, Congress made it very clear that when the VA received a claim, it had a legal duty to notify veterans what specific information or evidence would be required and who had to provide it – the VA or the veteran.

The VA has responded by using beneral boiler-plate type letters that are not personalized, non-informative letters which often contain incorrect or misleading information presented in incomprehensible beaurocratic jargon.

The plaintiff we supported recently won. Now the VA must revise its letters to make them clearly understandable and case specific. This will eventually help both the VA and veterans because claims presented will be better prepared. This will result in fewer rejections and appeals so that overall there will be better service to the veterans.

National Judge Advocate Phillip Onderdonk, Jr. gave his report on his activities as Corporate Counsel. Among the cases he mentioned is one in which the defendants named include himself, the national adjutant, and all commanders and members of the NEC during the years 1996 to 2001. This case is interesting because it has been dismissed in three federal courts and is now in the appeals process, but none of us has been served. The case involves a man who got cross-wisse with his Post. Instead of taking his case to his Department, he went to National. Onderdonk told him the National Organization could not and would not become involved in his case. Rather than taking his case to Department level, this fellow decided to sue us for damages.

In a similar manner, the attorney for an individual terminated by a Post from her position as a bar employee wants to sue us all at National. He was held off though because Onderdonk sent him several citations of cases where the Department and National were released from the cases because they exercised no day to day control of local Post operations. Then Phil informed the attorney that based upon these precedents, he would feel quite justified in filing a countersuit for harassment should the NEC be included in the suit.

Besides receiving reports from Commissions and Committees of the Legion, we were priviledged to hear MGen. Patrick Brady, the Medal of Honor recipient who heads up the Citizens Flag Alliance. He says that it is still possible to win the Amendment issue in this Congress, but if we should fail, it is even probable that we succeed in the next Congress. To do this, we must get every Senator on record and then hold their collective feet to the fire to make them respect what they have said before having to vote.

General Brady’s remarks were extended to include other areas of concern to him and many of us. He feels that the Judiciary has ursurped powers of the States to the extent that we now face a danger from an unelected unresponsible “elite”. If left to do their worst, humanism & athiesm will undermine Americanism without any need for the democratic process. Their job is simply to say what the law is, not what they would like it to be or what they would have written if they had been sitting in Congress in 1787.

As an example, he talked about the separation of Church and State. No such thought exists in the Declaration of Independence or in the Constitution as amended. Neither was it present in the Founders thoughts. They, the Founders of our country identified God as the source of our rights as opposed to an earthly ruler who could give priviledges today and retract them tomorrow. President Madison said, “We must individually govern ourselves according to the 10 Commandments”. According to the Founders, religious principles were to be the foundation of our laws. To highlight this, General Brady told us that the day after passing the First Amendment, Congress hired a Chaplain and declared a day of fasting and prayer. As an aside, he then commented, “I guess we’d better find out where Governor Arnold stands .. .. .. he could probably terminate the opposition.”

Returning to serious comments, we were reminded that Jefferson himself feared the power of the Judicial Branch. He called federal courts the “Germ of Desolution”. Because of these fears, Article III, Section 2 of the Constitution was drafted to allow Congress the power to pass laws which could not be subject to judicial review. General Brady finished his comments by calling us to support the “Trinity of Patriotism: Flag, Pledge, and Constitution”.

As always, I have with me all the reports presented to the NEC in case anyone wants to see an issue in greater detail.

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes, N.E.C.

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N.E.C. REPORT
TO THE
2003 CONVENTION
June 13 - 14, 2003

Although this is a report to the Annual Convention of the Department, I should like to cover only those items that were on the agenda for the Spring Meetings of The American Legion held in Indianapolis on May 5 – 8. What has been done earlier in the year at the national level has been the subject of previous reports.

National Commander Ron Conley accepted his election with a promise, that he would visit VA hospitals in every state. As he has gone about keeping that promise he has gotten to see the real situation in the VA; that is not to say that he has necessarily learned anything we did not already know, but he can now speak from personal experience rather than quote other people’s studies.

He has found that the VA’s Secretary Princippi is reducing the backlog of cases, but the reduction is going too slowly to be acceptable. At any given moment, 200,000 veterans are waiting to see a doctor for the first time. After that first consultation, there is an average wait of seven months before receiving any additional primary care.

Some things are going well; rather than put all claims onto a waiting list, if all the paperwork accompanies a claim such as one for death benefits, it is accepted and processed immediately. This means that some claims really are processed as they should be. On the other end of the scale, there is a special task force clearing the claims of veterans over age 65 who have been waiting more than a year. These numbers are being reduced at a very acceptable rate, provided, to begin with, that anyone can accept that there should be any claim a year old.

The problems are in the middle. Congress says the VA should treat 20 million veterans but they do not fund care for even 5 million. Other branches of government have their healthcare funded automatically but the VA funding must be appropriated each year. The lack of continuity and certainty causes delays and inefficiencies. The lack of a sufficient level of funding, even when it is appropri-ated, results in a VA that can not begin to do all that it is supposed to do.

One improvement would be to pass legislation allowing the VA to charge and receive payments from insurance providers, including the Social Security Administration’s Medicare program. At present, any monies the VA collects go to the government’s General Fund; the cash does not stay in the VA to actually pay for services rendered. The position of The American Legion is that we want America’s veterans to be able to use both the insurance funded by the premiums they have paid AND the healthcare system designed specifically to deal with the veteran’s special needs and problems.

We will not rest until the VA healthcare budget is funded as mandatory spending, not as a line item that can be modified drastically at any given moment to satisfy a momentary political exigency.

We also insist that the “stakeholders”, the groups that actually use the VA, should be included from the beginning in any evaluation of usefulness of the VA’s physical assets. At present the VA is about to undertake a system-wide evaluation, but they only want to report to the users a bit before they issue their final evaluations. We want to be included in realizing those evaluations, not proof reading the reports.

We also want our healthcare providers to receive competitive salaries. Secretary Princippi says he has a sufficient number of nurses, but overall, the system has a great many vacancies, simply because an individual can receive a much greater salary in the private sector. For example, Wal-Mart pays a pharmacist $30,000 a year more than does the VA.. .. .. and is likely to provide a “signing bonus” of a BMW.

When he was not focused on growing the VA to deal with the healthcare needs of the veteran population, Commander Conley was focused on growing our American Legion. As always, membership is key to our success.

We are actually doing well with new member recruitment. A big part of this success is due to the DMS – direct mail solicitation. Where we are falling down is in the area of maintaining our current members. You sign-up Joe, then forget about him. Funny thing, old Joe doesn’t send the Adjutant a check when the mailing comes from National asking for a renewal. The trick here is that we have to make the Legion relevant to our members and we have to make the effort to retain our Legionnaires.

Relevancy should never be an issue. There are enough standing programs to keep us busy and we can always start doing something new if you identify a need of your community. So the problem relates to the efforts me make to acquire and maintain our membership, not whether or not we are relevant.

One technique that has been suggested is to forget about year long recruiting. Rather, organize, train your people, and then hit it hard during a specific period. Go after all the renewals early in the year. Make a conscious effort to do something to present the Legion to the non-member so that the idea of becoming a Legionnaire will be attractive. Host a special non-member event such as the free breakfast Acapulco Post 4 has for their snowbirds. Then rest. Come back again in another 4-5 months with another organized effort. The idea here is summed-up with one word: focus.

You might not think that I would be glad that the Commander complained about something as important as the timely transmittal of dues, but I was .. .. .. at least in so far as it let me know that we are not the only folks who do not always get the dues in on time. The problem is endemic to the Legion. Mr. Member pays his dues in December, gets a card mailed to him in February and in May is still getting delinquent notices mailed from National. Let me assure you that if National had received the dues, it would not be wasting money on postage for renewal notices. They go out because the dues did not come in.

This has always been a serious issue with our American Legion. That is why the Constitution and By-Laws of the National Organization require the timely transmittal of all monies paid-in as dues. Put another way, the non-transmittal of dues received from the membership is prima-facie evidence supporting the can-cellation of a Post or Department charter.

When the time came to talk about the Children and Youth programs, we were informed that this year the Temporary Financial Assistance program paid out $421,477 to benefit 907 children, including some $116,000 benefiting 269 children of military members serving in the Persian Gulf.

The ways of bureaucratic organizations often seem strange. No doubt you might wonder that as part of the C & Y report we were informed of Legion activities preparing for the dedication of the WW-II Memorial on Memorial Day, 2004 .. .. but we did. The reason was that the NEC decided to include the September 11th Memorial Scholarship Fund as a recipient of monies raised by the Walk-a-Thon being sponsored jointly by the Legion and The Children’s Miracle Network. This event will be held as a consciousness-raising event immediately prior to the dedication.

Another Children and Youth project is a Mental Retardation Awareness program. Every year more information becomes available on prevention as well as on what can be done to improve the quality of life of those who suffer mental retardation through early intervention and training programs. Based upon the text of NEC Resolution #57, I would not be at all surprised if this does not become a major Legion program in the future.

The major issue brought up in conjunction with the Finance Commission Report was a new table of multipliers for the Paid-Up For Life (PUFL) program. The rates are going up supposedly because (a) you are living longer and (b) your Post dues are going up faster than inflation. The biggest changes apply to the youngest members; a 25 year old will have to pay 33 times the annual dues. For the older members, a Legionnaire in the 55-59 age bracket will pay 19.4 times the dues and in the 60-64 bracket, the multiplier is 16.7.

We who live down here are used to seeing interest rates high enough that a program using actuarial tables based upon 3% sounds a tad strange. In any case, if you are interested in acquiring a Paid Up For Life membership, I strongly recom-mend that you do so before the new multipliers go into effect on January 1, 2004.

Another money related report came from the Magazine Commission. Advertisements were down compared to last year, but we have to remember that 2002-03 was a very good year, much better than forecast. Postage rates have remained stable and should remain stable through 2006. All this is good, because it means that there should continue to be positive income from the Magazine. When the Magazine runs a profit, we do not have increases in national dues. In addition to May’s special issue on the Veterans Health Care System, another special issue is planned for September when there will be a special Vietnam issue.

Citizens’ Flag Alliance: The 14 year effort to pass an amendment to the Constitution for the purpose of protecting the American Flag from desecration is still a live issue with The American Legion. As always, we have the necessary support in the House of Representatives; now we also have a President who favors the legislation. The problem lies in the Senate. Included among the 36 who do not support the Amendment, there are five first term Senators who have not announced a position. These include Cantwell of WA, Corzine of NJ and Clinton of NY. Since they have not voted against it, these members need to hear from the Legionnaires who live or vote in their jurisdictions. Maybe we can get one or another on our side. If you have any doubts about how your senator stands, please see me; I have a listing.

For the first time in living memory, the Commander’s Advisory Committee made a report to the NEC. On this occasion they presented a new set of Guidelines for Hosting National Commander Visits. The purpose of these is clarify the planning process by indicating what information should be provided in advance and what kinds of amenities –including personal time -- the Commander should be provided. For some reason, the Advisory Committee does not think the Commander can put-in 19 and 20 hour days every day he is on the road. Still, the recommendations are just recommendations, they are not mandatory.

On a membership related theme, the Commander asked that any recommendations for the cancellation of Post Charters be resubmitted only after everything possible might be done to try to revive the subject posts. Thirty years ago there were 16,000 Posts. Today there are only some 14,000. This decrease in the number of American Legion Posts is a direct reflection of the community service that we can do; if the number of posts decreases, then the overall amount of community service provided by Legionnaires also goes down.

When we heard from the National Security Commission, the point was made that technology may be nifty, but the people involved are still key elements of our military’s success or failure. We were also given some interesting statistics concerning military casualties. In WW-II, there were 221 KIA per day for 4 years; in Vietnam we suffered 18 KIA per day for 7-1/2 years. In the Persian Gulf, the num-ber is 3 KIA per day for only a month.

The National Legislative Commission presented a report that covers all the legislation that is of interest to the Legion. That is, everything relating to veterans affairs and everything for which we have a resolution from the last National Convention. This is too extensive to cover here, but if you have an interest, please do see me later. Remember, even with a foreign address you can vote, so stay in contact with your Representative and Senators.

The Commander was quite unhappy with the results of the Washington Conference call-ins. There were fewer no-shows than last year, but there are still too many people who do not show-up. That affects how well the Washington Headquarters staff can do their lobbying work. He made it very clear that there will be changes made to the Legislative Council based upon the absences and that it will be sooner rather than later. He then encouraged us to fulfill our functions as leaders in our organization. Just as every NECman called a minimum of 25 delinquent members to fortify the membership retention effort, Commander Ron wants every Legion Leader to do his or her part to maintain what we have accomplished over the years. .. .. .. and then to build an even better organization on that foundation.

Finally, talking about building upon our foundations, I guess that maybe I should report on the Internal Affairs share of business. Three new foreign posts received Temporary Charters, including El Salvador No. 1 and Panama No. 2.

Respectfully submitted,
John E Hayes,
National Executive Committeeman

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