New Veterans, Old Veterans Want a Sense of Belonging

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A few months ago, after completing a more than 20-year U.S. Marine Corps career, Jon Knight moved to the Yakima Valley, where some of his family lived.

But it was a chance meeting at a Fourth of July event in Sunnyside where Knight found community.

There, Knight met members of the Yakama Warriors Association. It wasn’t long before he joined their ranks. Knight now spends most of his free time with the organization, at activities such as Veterans Day assemblies at Yakima Valley schools and funerals for Yakima Valley veterans, including those on the reservation.

Knight is 41, making him one of the youngest in the group and potentially someone who could help the organization connect to the next generation of veterans, said Vic Wood, head warrior for the Yakama Warriors Association, a nonprofit based in Toppenish.

It’s a role that Knight embraces. He has plenty of ideas on how to reach younger veterans, like organizing music jam sessions or simply providing a safe space for veterans to socialize and share their stories.

“It’s being able to know nobody is going to judge you for where you’ve been,” he said. “A lot of the young ones feel they don’t belong.”

It’s a shift from older generations of veterans who were accustomed to joining the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars, or VFW. Now those same groups are trying to figure out how to attract younger veterans, including those who served in the years following the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.

“The more traditional veterans groups, like the American Legion and the VFW, are often seen as Vietnam-era groups,” said Craig Bryan, executive director of the National Center for Veteran Studies at the University of Utah. “The notion of going to a lodge, a post or a building is much less exciting or interesting to younger generations.”

As a result, many young veterans in their 20s, 30s and 40s are looking for alternatives to those organizations or even opting out of them and focusing on the transition to civilian life — completing a college degree or raising a family.

Some simply feel uncomfortable about joining any social group.

“I hear from veterans, ‘What would I get out of this group?’” Bryan said. “(They say), ‘I’m different; they wouldn’t understand.’”

‘Best Thing I Ever Did’

It’s a feeling that’s not limited to today’s generation of veterans. When Wood, of the Yakama Warriors Association, returned to the Yakima Valley in 1973 after serving in the U.S. Navy during the Vietnam War, he attended a few meetings of his local American Legion, but he never felt comfortable among the older World War II and Korean War veterans.

He decided to focus on his personal life. He ran a rodeo business with his father. It was through that business that, in 1994, he met members of the Yakama Warriors Association. The group formed a few years earlier to serve at veterans’ funerals on the Yakama Reservation.

Wood wasn’t an enrolled Yakama member, but once the group’s members learned he was a veteran, they encouraged him to join and get involved.

“It was the best thing I ever did,” he said.

At age 69, he jokes he is relatively on the younger side of the organization’s 150 members. But his age shows when he participates in school assemblies. At one time, he’d get lots of cheers when he mentioned he once trained at the Miramar Naval Air Station near San Diego, where the 1986 Tom Cruise movie “Top Gun” was set. That reference has far less punch now. When asking whether anyone has seen the movie, “Half of them shook their head no,” he said.

It’s a reminder for Wood that there needs to be a new generation of veterans to continue the organization’s work.

But Wood can’t simply pass out membership forms. It’s now about building those relationships.

“The first thing you do is make them feel welcomed,” he said. “Approach them and be sincere. And listen. If they want to talk about something, just sit there and listen. Don’t butt in with your experience.”

Bryan said younger veterans are more likely to be drawn to authentic efforts to form a community, rather than joining a formal fraternal organization that is perceived to be for older men.



Young Commander

Al Pineda, commander of the Yakima VFW Post 379, is proof that the organization isn’t just for World War II veterans. Pineda is 38 and served in Iraq and Afghanistan for the U.S. Marine Corps before being discharged a decade ago.

He chose to be involved with the VFW because he liked interacting with veterans from different generations. But more important, he wanted to be involved in an organization that had a history of veteran advocacy.

“They’re huge advocates on a national level for veteran benefits,” he said. “I’m very passionate about veterans receiving the benefits that they earn.”

But he knows that many of his peers don’t share his interest in traditional veterans organizations, and a hard sell to potential recruits would be ineffective. Instead, he encourages members to bring veteran friends and family to VFW events.

Pineda maintains an active Facebook page that lists VFW events ranging from Thursday night dinners to painting parties. The group’s primary form of promotion is organizing activities in the community, such as today’s Veterans Day parade.

“We’re not pounding our chests and saying, ‘Look at us!’” Pineda said. “You got to talk to these guys one-on-one.”

An Open Door

There is a good reason that veteran organization leaders like Pineda may take a more low-key approach. For the past 15 years, veterans have been bombarded by pitches from organizations claiming to offer support and services.

But several of those organizations had financial scandals. In 2016, the Wounded Warriors Project, a nonprofit that aimed to offer support for veterans, fired executives after reports that they were improperly spending millions of dollars in donations.

The Better Business Bureau said the organization was in the clear a year later, but distrust for that group and others like it in general remains, said Bryan, the executive director of the National Center for Veteran Studies. “There’s paranoia and suspicion,” he said.

That distrust has kept Damien Patterson of Selah from becoming active with veteran organizations, though he’s done some work with them in the past. Patterson, who is still in active service with the U.S. Army but returned from his last tour in Iraq more than a year ago, said he constantly questions whether an organization wants to help veterans or is there for political or financial gain.

Still, Patterson knows the importance of being around other veterans, especially when transitioning back into civilian life. When he returned from his first combat tour, he didn’t have anyone to talk to or to guide him. As a result, he got into drugs.

“I fell on my face,” he said. “I never had anyone help me.”

He doesn’t want younger veterans to feel the way he did, so he often seeks out recent veterans when he’s out and about. He tries to listen and offer any help when he can.

“I’m the type of guy that goes under the bridge,” he said, referring to efforts to reach out to others.

While Knight, the 41-year-old Yakama Warriors member, enjoys helping others, he takes comfort knowing there are several veterans in the organization he can connect with, especially when negative memories of his military service come back.

“It’s just being able to have that open door that allows you to get through whatever you got or whatever stuff you have going on,” he said.

Knight said he wants to extend that same openness to younger veterans he meets.

“It’s about, ‘You served, you honorably served, let’s try to make it better and help you get through whatever you’re going through.”