Department Spotlight: Kentucky takes Legion's mission overseas
Members of the Department of Kentucky Legion Overseas Deployment team visit the Northeast Gate at Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay in Cuba. (Photo by Steve B. Brooks)

Department Spotlight: Kentucky takes Legion's mission overseas

Editor’s note: This is a weekly series of Department Spotlight stories featuring unique programs and initiatives of departments throughout The American Legion. Department adjutants are invited to recommend subjects for their departments by emailing magazine@legion.org.

In 2013, a five-person Department of Kentucky Legion family team headed overseas to meet with soldiers deployed from Kentucky to Africa. The goal was to show those currently serving that The American Legion is both there for them while serving and when they end their military careers.

Since then, the Legion Overseas Deployed (LOD) team has made a name for itself by conducting similar missions to other parts of the world. The brain child of Dr. Peter Trzop, executive director of Kentucky Boys State and the founder of Post 42 in Bardstown, Ky., the LOD provides info on Legion programs and help with benefits questions to active-duty servicemembers and – in the case of Joint Task Force Guantanamo Bay in Cuba – retirees living and still working on the base.

The team also has signed up more than 100 members, though membership is a by-product of the visits, not the end goal.

“Every situation is different,” Trzop said. “At the end of the day, we have to be flexible. We have to sit there and show people … what does The American Legion have to offer. When you start showing people what’s there, then they understand, ‘Maybe I should be a member.’ We’re selling a good product: The American Legion.”

The first deployment took place in 2013 in Djibouti, Africa, when a small group of Kentucky Legion family members met with members of the 2/138th Field Artillery Charlie Battery from Bardstown. Over the course of a week, LOD members briefed members of the 138th on future benefits, counseling services and the value of membership in The American Legion.

The LOD team signed up 125 members during the visit – 80 into the Department of Kentucky and 45 into 14 other departments. “Whenever you do something that’s innovative and cutting edge, if you make mistakes or … if something bad happens, it puts a bad tone on it,” Trzop said. “There were a lot of eyes watching us – not only from a post level, but from a state level and from a national level. But you can’t worry about that. You have to worry about performance and success. You may have some failures, but at the end of the day you’re helping veterans. That’s all that matters.”

A second such visit occurred in England when the LOD team traveled to RAF Mildenhall and RAF Lakenheath to interact with U.S. Air Force personnel. And last October, a group that included immediate Past National Commander Mike Helm went to Guantanamo Bay in Cuba for a similar mission.

While there, the LOD talked to the base command and personnel about services the Legion offers and shared info on Legion programs, and set up at the base exchange to reach as much of the base personnel as possible. Assistance with Department of Veterans Affairs benefits also was provided.

During a follow-up visit in April of 2016, Trzop and Kentucky Boys State Political Advisor Stevie Ray broached the subject of conducting a Boys State program through the base high school, leading to five male students and three female ones attending Kentucky Boys and Girls State earlier this summer.

The Boys State relationship was strengthened during another LOD visit to Cuba in September of this year, when base leadership expressed support for continuing to send W.T. Sampson High School students from the base to Kentucky Boys and Girls State.

Vivian Fleenor, a member of Auxiliary Unit 42 in Bardstown and the administrative director for Kentucky Boys State, made her first LOD trip during the September visit to Cuba. She wanted to participate in the visit after seeing the positive experience the Guantanamo students had during Kentucky Boys State.

“I really wanted to see what they’re environment was and what kinds of opportunities they have here at home,” Fleenor said. “Hopefully we can enhance that even more.”

Doug Alexander, a chaplain and member of Post 42’s of Sons of The American Legion squadron, was on the first two LOD trips and then took part in this year’s second trip to Cuba. “It’s … doing whatever we can for our guys to help them through whatever they’ve been through,” he said. “The amount of acceptance this has had at the base commander level … they’ve been great. If we can just spread this, we’re going to do a lot of positive things.”

Trzop said he would like to see other American Legion departments develops overseas deployment groups of their own. “If we do that, this program is going to keep getting bigger and bigger,” he said. “It’s not about membership, but that’s going to come. It’s really about are we doing our job? That’s all it’s about. And our job is the veterans, their families and our communities.”