National commander visits Bella Vista Post 341

Bella Vista, AR

Courtesy of Weekly Vista (Bella Vista, Ark.)

Legion national commander pushes value of membership

The American Legion needs to be strong, said National Commander Daniel Dellinger. Dellinger visited American Legion Post 341 in Bella Vista (Ark.) on Friday, where he participated in a luncheon and gave a short presentation following the meal.

“We need numbers,” he said. It’s not the cost of the bullets or the planes that is important to this nation’s military, he said, it’s the care for veterans afterward.

Individual posts do their part because the organization is about everyone working together. “It’s not me, not your community here, it’s you,” he said to the audience.

The value of the organization is in its membership. “The largest veterans organization in this country leads what we do for our country,” he said.

Dellinger said he spoke 39 times in front of Congress in the last year, pushing for change and legislation for the nation’s veterans. The care they should be receiving is an earned benefit, Dellinger said, of putting on a uniform and serving this country. Though veterans in the country are a minority, they must be a vocal minority, he stressed.

Dellinger also said it’s important for each post to report its numbers annually, including money raised and turned back over to the community and hours put in toward community service. Only 57 percent of posts in the nation reported numbers last year, which means a total number cannot be relayed to the United States government to stress the organization’s importance to the nation.

“It’s important we tell America who we are and what we do,” he said.

Photo below (courtesy of Jake Greeling): American Legion National Commander Daniel Dellinger, left, listens to Leonard Eisert, a member of American Legion Post 341 and one of the founders of the Veterans Wall of Honor, explain about the wall’s development. Dellinger was in Bella Vista Friday to address Legion members at a luncheon.

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