Joe Lopez, a life member who has been a part of the VFW since 1993, said he agreed with Crowley. Lopez served in Vietnam as a Special Forces Soldier and later taught military science at the University of Texas at Arlington. He said his experience with the VFW shortly after Vietnam left a bad taste in his mouth until he joined years later.
“Whenever I walked in, nobody would talk to me,” Lopez said. “Everyone was a World War II vet except me. I was a Vietnam vet. Of course, during Vietnam nobody really liked any veterans of the Vietnam era – not even civilians. I stopped going to the VFW. It’s just not what I expected the VFW to be.”
Another experience:
“Just returned from a Veterans Day Ceremony at the Technical college I taught at for 31 years. I am the VFW post commander for the local post. We had two other posts with larger memberships do the color guard, post the colors etc. It was a good ceremnony.
It was interesting when I sat down with the two other post commanders and we related our stories about coming home. Sure the demonstrators etc. were not fun but all three of us experience in being not welcomed to join our local VFW post when we first got home.
I tried to join the one my dad was in in 1973 and was basically told to take a hike they did not need or want us then.
Twenty years later we all joined VFWs and now lead our posts. The tune changed when everyone else was too old to march, and do the ceremonies or run the posts. It is one thing to be scorned by those who don’t know crap about military service it is a whole different issue to be unwanted by your own. We were able to overcome and overlook these issues and are here now to serve our veterans from all wars.”