Hello Comrades,

We have some good news within the Department of Pacific Areas. We will be instituting two new Posts this term.

The first new Post will be instituted in Banchang, Thailand. The Ritual Team has been assembled and I will be proud to be the instituting officer. The new Post will be formed on 19 February at Banchang in their new Post home.

Another new Post is being formed at Seoul Airfield, Korea. The date of the formal institution and chartering has not yet been finalized, but should occur sometime in March or April.

Heartiest of congratulations to Doug Cilley, Lou Holub, Casey Roberts, Larry Lyons and their teams for doing the extensive legwork, recruiting and promoting required toachieve this lofty & historic goal of organizing & chartering new Posts. Well done all!

This leads to the next subject, membership. These two new Posts will give us a nice boost in membership that is needed, as we are still behind where we were last year at this time. I can’t emphasize how important membership numbers are to help us better support our Veterans, families, widows & orphans as well as our active duty brethren.  It is time to really fire up our recruiting efforts, as you all have continuously done in the past.

I, along withall the Commanders of other Departments and States, will be attending the Legislative Affairs Conference in Washington, D.C. soon, as we (VFW) meet with the Congressional Joint Committee on Veteran’s Affairs on March 4^th. Our Commander in ChiefJohn Stroud will testify on behalf of our Veterans.  We will be “Fighting for our Vets!”

Warmest Regards,

 Bear

“Fight for our Vets!”