Vincent Melesko, a member of Turner-Tinker Post 128 Niantic (Conn.) updated the membership roster and contacted every member of the post recently while compiling a spreadsheet of his Buddy Check results.
Melesko reported his finding to the post at the September monthly meeting. He reported that he broke down the 191 members by war/conflict and began calling. For World War II, Korea and Vietnam veteran members he called three times. If no answer, Vinny turned to email and snail mail. He contacted each with a message: "I'm contacting you to see if you or your family are OK and if there is anything the Niantic American Legion can assist you or your family with. Your fellow Legionnaires are always here for you." He provided contact information for himself as well as the post service officer. He noted in his report, "Every member I directly talked to was very thankful for the telephone call." He spoke to 46 members, left VM for 43, sent email to 25 and mailed 35 letters. He found that 12 post members had joined Post Everlasting.
American Legion Buddy/Wellness Program
Some time ago I tried to get this program off the ground locally. I made telephone calls and sent emails to post officers but got nowhere. Finally, several months ago I went to a monthly meeting and asked if I could get a membership roster and start calling members of this post. They said yes and I eventually got a membership list.
It was old and not in a format I could work with. Trying to figure out how to best communicate with post members based on national guidelines, I retyped the entire membership list by conflict/war era - World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Panama, Lebanon-Grenada, Persian Gulf, GW Terrorism and Other. This list showed a total number of 191 members. I figured I would call the oldest veterans first and work my way to the newest members.
I started with the World War II members, but I checked their names on Google first and found that six or the 12 had already died. For the first three categories (World War II, Korea and Vietnam), I called three different times. If I didn’t get a response on the third call, I left a message. I made a lot of telephone calls.
On all the calls, if I never got to talk to anyone, I would leave a telephone message or send them an email if they showed no telephone number. There are many who had no telephone number or email address. For these, I sent them a letter. I did not contact known active members or those living out of the state of Connecticut.
Every member I directly talked to was very thankful for the telephone call. To many I gave the name and telephone number of our VSO, Dave Troillet.
Here are my results and attached is a copy of what I read or sent to our members.
American Legion Buddy/Wellness Check Program
Aug-23 Aug-23
Called No Telephone No Telephone Known
Conflict/War Era Talked To Left Phone Message Send Email or Email Died Out-of-State Member
World War II 0 1 3 1 7 0 0
Korea 6 2 1 5 1 0 0
Vietnam 35 24 13 15 4 15 8
Panama 0 2 0 0 0 0 1
Lebanon-Grenada 1 5 4 4 0 2 1
Persian Gulf 3 7 4 4 0 3 0
GW Terrorism 1 1 0 3 0 0 0
Other 0 1 0 3 0 0 0
46 43 25 35 12 20 10
American Legion Buddy/Wellness Check Program
