Legion Family, local agencies work together to make Be the One Weekend in San Diego County a supportive one for veterans and their families.
Tony Sodl noted he’s had several people tell him they noticed the cannons in front of American Legion Post 282 in La Mesa, Calif., but they weren’t really sure what the post was about.
“This is an opportunity to revitalize that and go, ‘Hey, this is what we can do for you in here,’” Sodl, the Post 282 commander, said about Together for Veterans: A Be the One Weekend. The event hosted by Post 282 June 13-15 gave attendees access to a variety of resources and saw the Legion Family reaching out to lapsed members as well as those who were a part of the Department of California administrative holding post.
District 22 Commander Vic Martin said, “Having an event like (this) where we have resources that are all there collaboratively coming together is powerful, because it shows a veteran that the community is willing to put everything aside to come together, different organizations, different missions, all coming together to just focus on how do we support the veteran and the family.”
Local and national leadership went door-knocking to check on lapsed Legionnaires; volunteers called those from San Diego County in the administrative post to encourage them to transfer their membership to their local post; and a variety of agencies, including veterans service officers, manned tables in Post 282’s hall on Saturday to offer their assistance to veterans and their families.
“It's fabulous, absolutely fabulous. Like normally we get some folks when we have an event, it takes 5-10 people to do it; this took about 30 people to get together and to establish all weekend long. And it just jumped together and it’s a lot of handraising going on, right. It’s beautiful to see,” Sodl said.
“We’re coming to you.” Ron Harrell, a veterans service officer from Post 460, said the key thing about what he and other VSOs provide “is that we’re free.”
“There’s a lot of things out there that you pay. I’ve dealt with a lot of veterans that paid for service. Then they’re like, ‘You’re free?! How come nobody told me that?’” Harrell said.
“These paid places, they’re not doing anything we’re not doing. They don’t have some kind of secret magic wand because you paid them. They’re doing exactly what we’re doing, but we’re doing it for free.”
Harrell knows that it “is the easiest thing in the world to put off” claiming the benefits a veteran is due. “Because when you get out of the service, they don’t tell you about this, go get your benefits. They just say, bye! I’ve had World War Two veterans come in and do their first claim. They got out in 1946, doing their first claim. And I say, you could have done this in ’46,” he said.
“A lot of times people put this off because of proximity. There’s nothing around where they live. Well, we’re coming to you,” Harrell said.
“It saved my life.” Among the agencies with tables at Saturday’s veterans resource expo were California American Legion Baseball, Work for Warriors, Honor Flight San Diego, the Veterans Art Project, Armed Services Arts Partnership, Guide Dogs of America and Courage to Call.
The opportunity to help connect within the community drew Danny Bahena, program coordinator for Armed Services Arts Partnership’s San Diego chapter and himself a recent new member of The American Legion, to participate in Saturday’s event.
“I see myself and my organization as sort of like a connective tissue between society and helping — by finding my way into The American Legion, I want to be able to help connect our communities and help bring more connection within the communities, so that we can get out of this social isolation tendency that a lot of us veterans have, and I still go through it, and I still have to force myself to take art classes so I can start connecting with people,” Bahena said. “It’s vital and it’s necessary, we need someone to help facilitate these programs so that we can slowly get our way back to being social again and to being healthy again.”
Bahena said “finding ways to process through art” has been a lifeline for him as he dealt with his own PTSD.
“It saved my life, literally, and I would do this for free if I could, I have done it for free as a volunteer, and I really deeply believe in its mission,” Bahena said.
Here to help. Martin was asked at one point what his hope was for the weekend.
“I hope that one veteran who may not even identify as a veteran, walks in this building and sees what a family they have, and how many people are here to support them and help them,” he said.
- Be the One