Top 5: Buddy Check Week, train to save, women heroes in war
1. Buddy Check Week
Since The American Legion began its Buddy Check program in 2019, more than 4,400 American Legion posts have reached out to over 1 million veterans for Buddy Checks. This week, the Department of Veterans Affairs kicked off its first National Buddy Check Week, which included a webinar in conjunction with the Legion.
VA Chief Veterans Experience Officer John Boerstler noted during the webinar that almost 5,000 people had signed up for his agency’s Take the Pledge to Talk to Ten veterans this week.
“Hopefully this call will get us over the 5,000-pledge mark,” Boerstler said. “That means that 50,000 veterans will be contacted this week.”
The webinar was moderated by American Legion Veterans Affairs & Rehabilitation (VA&R) Division Chairman Tiffany Ellett and included VA&R Chairman Autrey James and Matthew Miller, VA Suicide Prevention executive director.
Boerstler thanked The American Legion for stewarding the idea of a National Buddy Check Week “for years. We’re incredibly proud to steward this on your behalf. To use VA’s communications channels … to communicate this fantastic campaign. Obviously, we know the benefits of such an idea of Buddy Check Week, especially … thinking about how might we be able to reach untethered, unenrolled veterans, caregivers and survivors, so that they may be able to participate and access the earned benefits and care that they have so richly earned.
“And also, it’s a great opportunity for us to highlight our partnership with you, The American Legion, as well as many of our other incredible partners – not only at the national level … but most importantly, where the rubber meets the road down in communities at the post level and the community level.”
Buddy Check tools: Visit www.legion.org/BuddyCheck for tools and resources. And share stories and photos from your Buddy Check events in the Buddy Check section of Legiontown.
2. Save lives with this training
The American Legion National Executive Committee passed several resolutions during its annual Fall Meetings Oct. 11-12 in Indianapolis, with a few of them focusing on mental health. One encourages American Legion posts to hold VA S.A.V.E. training classes and invite the community to attend.
Resolution No. 9, Department of Veterans Affairs S.A.V.E. Training at Posts, supports the Legion’s Be the One suicide-prevention mission to save the lives of veterans and destigmatize asking for mental health support. The acronym stands for:
S - Signs of suicidal thinking should be recognized.
A - Ask the most important question of all, “Are you thinking of killing yourself?”
V - Validate the veteran’s experience.
E - Encourage treatment and expedite getting help.
American Legion posts interested in hosting a VA S.A.V.E. training class can facilitate it through their local VA Medical Center’s suicide prevention team. A post can locate contact information for their local suicide prevention team through the Veterans Crisis Line Resource using this link.
More Be the One tools: Visit www.legion.org/betheone to download a variety of resources to help promote and save the lives of veterans. Resources include brochures, physical displays, wallet cards, videos and more.
3. Women heroes of the Afghanistan war
Two women veterans, an American and one from Afghanistan, share their wartime experiences and ongoing quest for the Afghanistan Adjustment Act in this week’s American Legion Tango Alpha Lima podcast. Listen to the episode.
Army veteran Rebekah Edmondson served 10 years and deployed to Afghanistan several times to support a program called the Cultural Support Team (CST). Mahnaz Akbari served 10 years in Afghan special forces as the Female Tactical Platoon (FTP) commander. She joined the FTP in 2011, completed more than 150-night raids with Afghan and U.S. soldiers, and was chosen as FTP commander in early 2014.
“In Afghanistan, and Islamic countries, to do these kinds of missions it’s important to have females,” Akbari said, noting the female soldiers would be able to find SIM cards and other evidence on the women they were searching. “I always say it was impossible to do these without CSTs and FTPs because they are the person who gathers the evidence, the person who actually finds the target.”
Edmondson and Akbari met in 2015 at a training base for FTPs at Camp Scorpion, right outside of the training center in Kabul. Edmonson now works with The American Legion and others to advocate for passage of the Afghan Adjustment Act, which would allow other FTPs to achieve citizenship and rebuild their lives in the U.S. And after the fall of Kabul, Akbari was among more than 40 FTPs who made it to the U.S. Now, she works for the PenFed Foundation to assist other FTPs to resettle here.
Keep listening: This episode of the Tango Alpha Lima podcast also features a discussion on how the Air Force is to review discharge of troops with mental health conditions; the action comedy “Obliterated” where drunk and special operators struggle to finish a mission; and whether the NFL will retire Pat Tillman’s jersey number.
4. Sacrifice, valor and Semper Fi
The 40th anniversary of the terrorist attack on the First Battalion, 8th Marines Headquarters building in Beirut, Lebanon, is coming up. On Oct. 23, 1983, 241 Marines, soldiers and sailors were killed when a terrorist drove an explosives-laden truck into the building, in the single deadliest day for the Marine Corps since the Battle of Iwo Jima.
American Legion National Commander Daniel J. Seehafer reflected on that tragic event:
In the spirit of separating the war from the warrior, I wish to focus on the bravery and nobility of the servicemembers who deployed on that complex and still controversial mission in Lebanon.
Shortly after the bombing, Gen. P.X. Kelley, commandant of the Marine Corps, visited his wounded troops at a hospital in what was then West Germany. The New York Times provided a detailed report of an encounter Kelley had with Lance Cpl. Jeffrey L. Nashton, who was in critical condition and described by the general as having “more tubes going in and out of his body than I have ever seen.”
Kelley said that when Nashton had heard the commandant introduce himself, “he grabbed my camouflage coat, went up to the collar and counted the stars. He squeezed my hand, and then attempted to outline words on his bedsheet. When what he was trying to write was not understood, he was given a piece of paper and pencil, and then wrote ‘Semper Fi.’”
When the wounded Marine returned to the United States, Kelley presented him with the stars that he touched during the hospital visit. “They belonged to him more than to me,” Kelley said.
Crossing the nation: See photo galleries of Commander Seehafer’s visits to American Legion departments nationwide at www.legion.org/commander/photos.
5. Tune in and listen on building stronger communities
The American Legion National Internal Affairs & Membership Division is conducting a six-part series called "Building Stronger Communities" through its Training Tuesday platform. The first part on how to start a post was held Sept. 26. A recording of the training is online.
The training covered:
- The mission of an American Legion post
- Considerations involved in starting a new post
- Requirements for starting a new post
- Recruitment strategies
The next Training Tuesday will be Oct. 31. Join here.
There’s more: The Training Tuesday webpage has a list of recordings dating back to October 2020 on topics such as resolution writing, MyLegion, membership retention, legislative priorities and much more.