Sons of The American Legion National Commander Bill Clancy is visiting veterans in VA medical centers, pursuing fitness goals and planting 250 trees on his personal USA 250 Challenge.
During his travels this year as national commander of the Sons of The American Legion, Bill Clancy will deliver a three-fold message.
Community service. Physical activity. Mental wellness.
“My project for the year is promoting and taking part in the USA 250 Challenge,” said Clancy, a member of Squadron 156 in City Island, N.Y. “It's a program, it's a challenge from The American Legion to all Americans to get involved in at least one of three things — physical fitness, community service and/or wellness.”
(Sign up here for The American Legion’s USA 250 Challenge.)
Clancy is participating in all three challenge categories. He plans to conduct 250 workouts throughout the year, plant 250 trees for community service and visit a minimum of 250 veterans in VA hospitals.”
Roughly a month after his election, he brought that message to the Bronx VA.
During his visit, Clancy engaged with veterans, including those staying at the nearby Fisher House and some who were working out in the rehabilitation center at the medical center. Among those was Rudy Coombs, who has been working out three times a week for the past year.
"There’s no comparison,” Coombs says, alluding to how he feels now contrasted with last year. “I mean I still have chronic pain, but in some of the other places that I used to have pain are not as bad as they used to be."
Coombs and Clancy talked about the importance of physical health, including how it effects one’s mental health.
“Health and wellness are very important,” said Coombs, an Army veteran who served from 1977 to 1981. “I have an old friend who was down in the ruts. I told him, ‘It's a mind thing. If you get your mind straight, you'll be fine. Just work on getting your mind in a positive attitude.’
“Working out promotes the positiveness because it takes discipline. It takes discipline to come to do the fitness, and then it takes discipline to do the workouts and the repetitions. If you can do it in the gym, then you can do it anywhere else.”
On the weight machine next to him was Walter Ingram, a post-9/11 Navy veteran and Bronx resident who showed Clancy an email he received about the challenge and vowed to sign up.
“I like working out and want to do better physically and mentally health wise. And hopefully, by next year, I can wear a tank top to the beach,” Ingram said with a chuckle. “As far as mental health, it helps you. It’s like an outlet. You go to the gym and it helps you focus your mind on working out.”
Military service runs deep in Clancy’s family. His father, William G. Clancy, served stateside during Vietnam in the Army. His grandfather, William Patrick Clancy, was a Navy veteran, who helped build a ship during World War II in Nevins Shipyard in the Bronx.
That legacy fostered a sense of service in Clancy, who is a Boys State alum.
“Service is at the core of what makes the United States a great country,” he said. “Ever since our beginning from the founding fathers, putting their lives and their names on the line to make a free country. Today, I think it's more important than ever to get everybody involved in service, particularly young people, to get them off their phones, off their iPads, and engaged in doing stuff to get engaged in getting fit, staying healthy, to get them engaged in service.”
- USA250 Challenge