Early in my career, I had the great honor of working with the Department of Pennsylvania Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW), doing a number of tasks from composing position statements, to crafting media releases, to writing and editing its statewide newsletter that went to tens of thousands of vets around the state. Much of the information was typical stuff–photos of Post fundraisers, profiles of the organization’s officers, announcements of VFW programs, etc.–but headline stories at the time dealt with one primary thing.
That was healthcare–specifically, mental health care. In the 1980s, the VFW and the American Legion were the two primary veterans advocacy groups. The organizations were dominated by members of The Greatest Generation, World War II and some Korean War vets who largely dealt with their trauma and stress alone. (In my own family, my mother told me stories about one of her brothers who would go on long meandering car rides by himself, after he returned from his service in Europe, to cope. After one of these car rides, he found himself in Ohio, she said, having driven through the night without a specific destination.)
Veterans healthcare was one of the issues the American Legion and the VFW frequently cooperated on their lobbying efforts, but those efforts regularly left out the needs of the newest veterans, from the Vietnam War. During my stint working with the VFW, the long-term injuries of Vietnam started to come into public consciousness, with people learning about the high suicide and drug abuse rates among these vets. The lack of advocacy for this group of vets had led to the formation of the Vietnam Veterans Association of America.