Legit Patrol Pin worthy of VFW membership

Shootin' the breeze, chewin' the fat, general chit-chat
Post Reply
Clyde (Chip) Porter
Posts: 43
Joined: Fri Nov 04, 2005 5:27 am
First Name: Clyde (Chip)
Last Name: Porter, Jr.
Crew?: Blue
Which Years on Board: 1975-78
Special Crew?: Neither
Rate: MM2 M-Div

Legit Patrol Pin worthy of VFW membership

Post by Clyde (Chip) Porter »

While checking out the website links last night I noticed that last year on October 9, 2005 the VFW decided to change their eligibility requirements to include those with a legit patrol pin as veterans worthy of VFW membership. The actual requirement wording is “SSBN Nuclear Patrol Breast Insignia” and the time period is worded “Jan. 21,1961 – Open”.

As a kid I used to enjoy reading the history and military articles in the American Legion’s magazine. My dad would periodically get the magazine from a fellow engineman at the reserve center and I would read everyone that I saw. Since I enjoyed the magazine so much I decided to join the American Legion after my discharge but to my disappointment I found that my six years of service were not worthy of membership in the American Legion. It was as though they thought of me as a “second class” veteran. They told me about the eligibility dates and that my enlistment (Oct 72 - Oct 78) did not fall within. Checking into obtaining a VFW membership met with the same second class veteran results. Because of this I gained a resentment toward both organizations. Since I was not good enough for them, my money was not any good to them when they asked for donations or had fund raisers. I would get some satisfaction when local VFW / American Legion posts would close due to declining membership while still denying me a membership.

Around 1990, after experiencing declining membership, the Legion had the Viet Nam era date extended to May 75 which would include the time that I spent aboard the USS Neosho and the USS Los Alamos but still considers the time aboard James Madison (Jul 75 – Oct 78) as second rate service. Since they had denied me for more than a decade I had no desire to join their ranks when I finally did become eligible and I have no desire to join the VFW after being shunned more than a quarter of a century since my discharge.

Clyde W. Porter Jr.
Clyde (Chip) Porter
former MM2SS
Blue Crew 75' to 78'
Keith Holman
Site Admin
Posts: 306
Joined: Sat Oct 15, 2005 7:43 pm
First Name: Rufus Keith
Last Name: Holman
Crew?: Combined and Blue
Which Years on Board: 1980-84
Special Crew?: Neither
Rate: MM1 M-Div
Contact:

Post by Keith Holman »

Interesting find, Chip.
There are other instances where rules on what service counts and what doesn't seem to make no sense.
Vets are in a different category at my job when determining seniority for layoffs but for that purpose, my time doesn't count -- not because of the sub service but because of the time. The country's been here over 230 years, I happened to serve during the 6 years we were at "peace".
I just remember that we never fired a shot while I was there -- because we were doing our job and being effective.
~Keith
Reunion Association President
Post Reply