Tuesday, Feb 9, 2010

Features

An older vet looks at an American Legion Post 911’s van, emblazoned with portraits of American veterans of Iraq and Afghanistan.

November 18th, 2009
By Michael Vick

When Army Capt. Michael Gerold returned from combat in Afghanistan in 2007, he set out on a mission of a different kind: to help his fellow veterans struggling to reconnect with the lives they left behind.

Gerold turned to the American Legion, the congressionally chartered veterans’ organization founded after World War I, but found the group largely unprepared for the needs of the young vets returning from tours in the Global War on Terrorism.

“When I came back the American Legion had 15,000 posts in seven countries,” said Gerold, a University of San Francisco graduate. “WWII posts, Vietnam posts, Korea posts. There wasn’t one, after six years of fighting, that was an Iraq-Afghanistan-centric post.”

Gerold said many fellow vets felt uncomfortable joining posts where most members fought in conflicts of decades past and shared war stories over beer in Legion lodges. So, in true military tradition, he gathered with several compatriots and blazed a new path.

On Sept. 11, 2007, American Legion Post 911 was born. Since its founding, more than 500 members have joined, and Gerold has moved from post commander to state membership director for the American Legion in California. At 40, he is the youngest person to hold the post in the country.

Under his leadership team, the post went from last place to first in membership in the entire state – a leap in ranking that has never been achieved in the Legion’s 91-year history in California.

Gerold said one way the post has been able to attract so many young veterans is through the use of social media like Facebook, MySpace, Twitter and Second Life. The post maintains a presence on each site, but Gerold said the tools are merely a gateway, and cannot replace face-to-face contact.

“Nothing replaces nor in my opinion will ever replace a handshake, a pat on the shoulder or a warm smile,” he said.

Post members have traded drinks in smoke-filled lodges for skydiving, scuba diving, snowboarding and paintball. But Gerold said the outings are just a way to draw in members and help re-establish bonds often lost when soldiers return to civilian life. What he and fellow Legionnaires really are after form the post’s three core commitments: education, vocations and medical assistance.

Gerold said every one of the post’s members is committed to getting a college education or furthering that education if they already have an undergraduate degree. The post has partnered with a number of local colleges and universities, including the University of San Francisco, where Gerold himself graduated with a master’s in business administration. Gerold said the post has worked to secure scholarship funds for veterans seeking higher education.

Gerold was interrupted several times during his interview with Catholic San Francisco to take calls regarding residential accommodations for veterans. Post 911 has three dedicated vans emblazoned with the group’s publicity photo that provide vets free transportation for post activities, trips to university admissions appointments and job interviews.

Or rather, career interviews. On that last point, Gerold is adamant.

“We don’t want jobs for our veterans,” Gerold said. “We want jobs that lead to career paths. That’s what is critical.”

On the medical side, Post 911 takes a holistic approach. Not only does the group work to ensure veterans are properly cared for physically, but emotionally and psychologically as well.

Gerold said vets battling the after-effects of war shoulder the added burden of the stigma attached to mental health problems like post-traumatic stress disorder, which he prefers to call “combat stress” to distinguish it from PTSD experienced by non-veterans. Despite the challenges, he said the soldiers can win the fight.

“The ‘Greatest Generation’ came back and had tremendous combat stress,” Gerold said, referring to veterans of World War II. “It was called ‘shell shock.’ Many worked through it. Most of us do, through the support of church, family, whatever that person needs.”

To that end, veterans’ families form the post’s extended family. Though they remain a part of what is traditionally called the auxiliary and hold separate meetings as required by Legion by-laws, Lt. Col. Debra Roesler, president of the auxiliary 911 unit, said the post makes no distinction.

“We try to promote the entire Legion family,” said Roesler, who as a retired Army officer and the wife of an Army officer, is a member of both the post and auxiliary.

Roesler is one of several women in leadership positions at the post. The post itself is roughly 10 to 15 percent female, according to Gerold, and Roesler said the leadership roles she and other female post members have taken on have been a clear sign of a break with tradition.

“When you have me out there, it promotes a positive image for female veterans, which may have been lacking in previous Legions,” Roesler said.

Gerold said the post’s focus on female veterans has paid off.

“I believe women have always been the force behind great movements and great ideas, and we’re attracting them like bees on honey,” he said.

Roesler served in Kuwait, Egypt and Qatar, and now in retirement her day-to-day work with the unit involves getting help for veterans at risk due to combat stress, economic hardship, difficulty readjusting to life outside the military or other factors.

“We don’t want to be an organization that only talks to them one time,” Roesler said of the veterans. “When we do talk to someone, we want to get them help.”

It is that help and understanding for veterans that Gerold said was lacking in a previous conflict, the Vietnam War. The captain speaks to groups of Vietnam vets regularly, and he said their frustration with their treatment has prompted many to devote time and money to seeing Post 911 succeed.

“I want to correct one of the worst tragedies in American history, in my opinion, and that was the treatment of veterans and their families after the Vietnam War,” Gerold said. “The reception they got was disgraceful. So I ask them, help me prevent what happened to you from ever happening again.”

Gerold said that regardless of how one feels about the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan, the honorable treatment of veterans and their families should be a separate issue. He called for sustained effort on the part of Democratic and Republican policymakers to care for returning soldiers.

“With many, it stops with a bumper sticker and a handshake,” Gerold said. “I am really concerned with both parties, that they do the right thing and not just when the cameras are pointed at them.”

As for the public, Gerold said most want to help returning vets regardless of their position on the war, but often do not know how.

“Everyone’s got a good heart, they want to do what’s right,” Gerold said. “We can show them how to help veterans.”

Post 911 Commander Sgt. Matt Shea told Catholic San Francisco the public should learn to make the distinction between politicians who make the decisions about military engagements, and the soldiers on the ground simply doing their duty.

“The soldier is not politician or a policymaker,” said Shea, who served in Iraq and Afghanistan in the U.S. Army Special Operations force. “That’s piece really needs to be driven home.”

For more information, visit www.legionpost911.org.

 

 

From November 20, 2009 issue of Catholic San Francisco.