Student Veterans

There have been a lot of activities recently from the Students Veterans of America regarding how to advance student veterans’ issues and concerns. The SVA leadership sincerely believes that student veterans need to get involved in The American Legion because we have the experience and expertise to offer mentorship to the younger generation of veterans hoping to advocate for their own initiatives. Below you will see a example of a very thoughtful response to a student veteran regarding two issues: 1. The acceptance of military credits by colleges and universities; 2. The truthfulness of our military recruiters.

From the response you will see that our mentor from The American Legion Department of California carefully laying out counter arguments and actionable directions for our young veterans (I have removed their names to protect their privacy):

Dear Ms. (student veteran),

The reason I structured my statements the way that I did was because, in order to structure a resolution-type action within the American Legion, you must be able to clearly address the issue, and then provide an "action" to be forwarded.

I do have sympathy for your situation with recruiters, however, the word you used was "equivalent." Many fields/MOS specialties have "equivalent" counterparts in the civilian world. Some of the Army training I went to was very technical and had highly paid counterparts in the civilian world, but, if I wanted a civilian rating or degree, I had to either pay the fees associated with it, or take the certification testing required to get the "civilian rating." I think the issue of "credit" would be better stated to "encourage the military education/training programs to, as much as is reasonable, coordinate with a college in the area to include the equivalent syllabus materials, so that students graduating from the course, can pay the fees associated with the credit, upon successful completion of the course." (My attendance at CAS3 only resulted in one Masters Level Statistics or Calculus credit through one of the military-friendly Colleges, I don't remember which one. I paid the fees associated with that credit and was given a copy of the college transcript.) I think that is a fair solution, given that the college has not taught the class and are trusting that the military has taught the college's class syllabus. I do not think it fair that any college be required to accept course credit of any other institution, given that the degree that would be received, would be theirs, and their name is on the line. If I could say it another way...it would be like if I created a tool, then took it to Sears, and then demanded that they put it into their inventory as a Craftsman's tool. It is not reasonable to think that they would. It may be a great tool, but it is not a Craftsman. To take that a step back to the military, many of the medical fields require State Certificates in addition to the college training/classes. Many are not "degree producing" certificate programs, such as blood taking etc.

As for "truth is advertising" of the recruiters, I would approach that as a resolution that would be couched in a way that said something like, "As the military is under great change, it is particularly important that recruiters are kept up to date with the latest changes...etc..." As I have sworn in many troops since I moved here, I always ask the person being sworn what they have been promised. I am a firm believer that both parties have the responsibility to be both truthful and transparent in what they are offering and asking. Both are signing documents that should say what is promised. If you think about it, there are very few places of military training that offer "degrees." The service academies would be one example, but even that is a degree from the academy, and not of civilian college.

Your mentioned the GI Bill. There is a new one in place. If you need more personal help with what your benefits are, there should be a county office called "Veteran Service Office" in your area. They are just like the old Personnel Action Centers. They are a wonderful resource for discovering what benefits you are entitled to, as well as finding out about unique programs in your area.

Bottom Line: You will have to decide for yourself which direction you want to go with these issues. If you join a local post, they can help you in the wording of any resolution you might want to have voted on. If it passes your local area it is forwarded up through the channels just like the military does. Some of your general issues with education should probably be left in the political/civilian side of the issue. You will need to get to know your local political representatives.

Hope this helps,
Sincerely,
(The American Legion Departmetn of California Mentor to Student Veterans)

New Guide Helps Nonprofit Professionals

During the first three weeks of 2009, hundreds of nonprofit professionals participated in a resolutions poll or shared their resolutions for 2009 through Convio's website, online community and industry blogs. The poll answers along with other shared insight was used to create the first ever Nonprofit Resolutions Guide from Convio. The Guide is available for free at www.convio.com/resolve2009

Results of the poll show that constituent empowerment, integrated channels and technology resolutions are top priorities in 2009:

30 percent of participants resolve to empower supporters to help tell their story, reach new people and raise funds,
20 percent want to better integrate traditional and online campaigns, and
19 percent want to better use technology to turn ideas into action.
These results, combined with analysis of feedback from Convio's Connection Café blog (www.connectioncafe.com) and more than one dozen industry bloggers who participated in the online discussion led to development of the Guide to help nonprofits keep their resolutions. Each section of the Guide focuses on key resolutions with insight and tips on how to maintain momentum throughout the year. Readers will also find related success stories from other nonprofit organizations and information pulled from some of the best ideas shared in Convio's online community over the past year.

Download the Guide and Join the Discussion

The Resolutions Guide is available immediately as a free download at www.convio.com/resolve2009

The nonprofit community is invited to continue sharing ideas, insight and obstacles to successfully using technology to drive results and support mission-critical needs, by visiting any of the participating blogs and/or linking their own posts to them:

A View from Judi Sohn - http://www.momathome.com/ - Judi Sohn

Beaconfire Wire - http://beaconfire.com/blog/ - Michael Cervino

Beth's Blog - http://beth.typepad.com/beths_blog/ - Beth Kanter

Connection Café - http://www.connectioncafe.com - Jordan Viator and Convio blog team

Donor Power Blog - http://www.donorpowerblog.com/donor_power_blog - Jeff Brooks

Everyday Giving - http://everydaygiving.typepad.com/ - Roger Carr

FI Space - http://www.fispace.org/ - David Neff

Mobile Commons - http://mcommons.com/blog/ - Matt Wilson

NTEN Blog - http://www.nten.org/blog - Holly Ross, Nonprofit Technology Exchange Network

Social Actions Blog - www.blog.socialactions.com Tech Soup - www.blog.techsoup.org

Tech Soup - www.blog.techsoup.org - Robert L. Weiner

Robert L. Weiner Blog - www.rlweiner.com/blog - Robert L. Weiner TREW Marketing Spotlight - - Wendy Covey

About Convio
Convio is the leading provider of on-demand constituent relationship management (CRM) software and services that give nonprofit organizations a better way to inspire and mobilize people to support their organization. The company's online marketing suite offers integrated software for fundraising, advocacy, events, email marketing and Web content management, and its CRM system, Convio Common Ground, helps organizations efficiently track and manage all interactions with supporters. All Convio products are delivered through the Software-as-a-Service (SaaS) model and are backed by a portfolio of best-in-class consulting and support services and a network of partners who provide value-added services and applications focused on the unique needs of nonprofit organizations.

Convio clients include nonprofit organizations, Institutions of Higher Education, Associations and Faith-based organizations around the world such as American Red Cross, American Diabetes Association, American Society for the Prevention of Cruelty to Animals, Humane Society of the United States, Easter Seals, National Multiple Sclerosis Society, Susan G. Komen for the Cure®, Sierra Club, and National Public Radio. For more information, please visit www.convio.com

Placecam

In addition to my duties as Dept Commander, I edit the Smoke Signals, the bi-monthly newsletter of Chief Joseph Post 135. I have started using Placecam to work with my proof reader to make corrections on the paper. It saves a few trips back and forth between our houses. I would highly recommend Departments look in to using Placecam.

Photo Album as a Community Project

Building a photo history for the department is an exciting but daunting project. One way is to have members send you the photos, and then add them to the album. Getting the photos is probably the easiest part. The hard part is getting the story behind the photo. For a whole department, this could be an overwhelming task.

We love to look at photos, and share our photos. Sharing is the key word. It is the basis of such sites as Google's Picasa, or Yahoo's Flickr. What these sites lack is an easy means for creating a community album, and for that community album to be a part of the Department's Web site.

While I had the idea for awhile, I wasn't sure how to implement it. At our son's wedding last December, I floated the idea of creating a domain name for the kids wedding album and providing one place for everyone to share their pictures. Within a week after the wedding, there were almost 1,000 photos in the album. If it works for a wedding, why not a department's history?

The software is Gallery 2, and available at my price - free. Installing the software is easy, configuring all the options takes awhile. After doing the wedding album, it was much easier. If you are doing it the first time, it takes a few days of experimenting to find out how the options work.

It really helps to have a few photos to get started. Once I created the basic structure for albums, the next step is to get more people involved. For example, the Department Historian has an account, the Department Commander has an account. They have their own albums for which they are the owner and for which they are responsibile for adding photos and building their part of the history. The initial photo album is not big, but it is a start.

The next step is to get other officers, program chairmen, and posts involved. This is the part that takes more time. A project takes time and effort to build. It takes promotion, and more promotion. As it builds critical mass, it gets easier. At least, the fantasy is that it gets easier. At this point my job is to promote, administer, mentor, and more promotion.

Community projects like the photo album allow others to be involved in the Web site. It gets more visitors to the site. It becomes a community project, and not an individual project. Only time will tell how this works.

Bill Anderson
Webmaster
American Legion of Montana

Static versus Dynamic Pages

Occasionally, you hear that a Website is static, while a Web Application is dynamic. This distinction refers to how the pages are generated versus the content. Nor, does it refer to the timeliness of the information.

Anyone who works with the Web knows that the content must be current and it must offer something new to have repeat visitors. If a visitor sees an entry whose data has long passed, it is an immediate clue that the information on the site is not current. The side could is static, in one sense of the term, in that it is not timely.

The content of the site can be timely, and it can change, and still use static Web pages. If the content of a page is a fixed document, it is a static page. It does not make any difference whether it is written in HTML, DHTML, XHTML, because the content of the page is static. For many pages, this is the best solution. There are pages whose only change occurs when the information on the page is no longer timely.

A dynamic page is a generated page, using a language such as Perl, PHP, Java, or Ruby on Rails. The content of these pages change depending on the information requested. When delivering dynamic content, you often have a back-end database that provides the content.

On the mtlegion.org Website, dynamic content appears in a number of different Web Applications. I call them Web Applications because the number of PHP pages is small compared to the number of different pages delivered. For example, the Posts page only invokes two scripts. One for district information and one for post information. The district script only invokes the post script or the officer information script. The post script can inoke the officer information script. The entire department roster runs off of three scripts that invoke the same officer information script. When any change is made, it is made to the database, and every script automatically generates the new information. With dynamically generated pages, I can now add links to the chairpersons on the program pages, and not worry about changing those pages if the chairperson changes. Only the database changes.

The membership services section follows the same rules. Every post goes through the same scripts. What is offered as a service is defined in a database. If a post wants a dffierent level of service, it only takes one change to the database, and all generated pages change.

If any contact information changes for a post. It only requires a change to the database, and all pages change.

The visitor never sees the underlying code. It just makes maintenace and integration of the Web pages a lot easier.

Bill Anderson
Webmaster
American Legion of Montana

Forms and More Forms

I just finished adding all the forms required by Posts and Legion Members to out Web site. It was a challenging project, as I have yet to find a source of National forms in PDF or Microsoft Word format. Without the source documents for many forms, I simply had to scan the forms. The PDF files resulting from scanned forms are much larger than those generated from source documents.

Making the forms available on the Web site makes them more quickly available, and reduces the postage cost for sending out forms. However, it is a long way from the ideal solution.

When we talk about using technology, we often forget the more mundane topics. Yet,, for everyday functioning of an organization, forms just as important, if not more so, than social networking. While computers do a great job of generating paper, they can also be used to save trees and reduce costs.

When available, I also made the Microsoft Word version of the form available. Yet, both the Word document and the PDF document can be improved. With both formats, a form can be designed to fill-in fields. For example, PDF has the capability to have fill-in fields. The resulting PDF file can then be send back to the Department without ever have to print and mail the form. Email could replace the FAX, saving paper in the process.

Ideally, every form would be a fill-in the fields type of document, which is electronically submitted. If we get real fancy, we can even complete the form on-line. All this is possible with today's technology. It would be both environmentally friendly and cost effective. In the meantime, it sure would be nice to have the source documents of National forms, and not just printed forms.

Bill Anderson
Webmaster
American Legion of Montana

The American Legion and the GI Bill

Please forward and share this video

National Grassroots Conference

Good morning to all departments of the Western Region.

First I want to thank you for your dedicated work in membership. We continue to hold a competitive edge over our Southern Region brothers and sisters in terms of membership. We still have a ways to go to be the leader of the pack, but I sincerely believe the West is the Best, and will continue to support you. Please feel free to contact me if you should need anything at all.

I also want to wish everyone a Merry Christmas and Happy New Year. May the new year bring you renewed passion for the world’s greatest and largest Veteran Service Organization.

Allow me to be a bit philosophical for the moment: it was taught to me that no matter of our success, we shall continue to learn and better ourselves in whatever our endeavors maybe. With that said, there is a wonderful upcoming opportunity for all of us to sharpen our skills and rejuvenate our minds.

This year’s National Grassroots Conference will be February 4-7, 2009 - Renaissance Vinoy Resort & Golf Club - St. Petersburg, FL. There are a range of topics you may find interesting. Such as:

- (Re)Building Your Grassroots Program
- How to Write Effective Messages
- Ethics & Transparency in Grassroots
- Finding & Training Your Key Contacts
- Speed Networking
- Web 2.0/Social Media Crash Course
- Grassroots and Diversity
- Effectively Involving Your Senior Management
- Integrating CSR and Grassroots Strategies
- Prioritizing Issues and Managing Demands
- Association Grassroots Management
- Grassroots Communication
- Embracing Social Media

As you can see, there is something for everyone there. I have always heard that volunteer management is difficult, and our most profound challenge is to motivate and utilize our dedicated workers effectively. I believe this conference will give you some ideas and help you with your work at the department level.

To view a complete agenda please go to http://pac.org/conferences/grassroots/agenda
You can also visit http://pac.org/conferences/grassroots/registration for registration information. Note: we are not a member of the Public Affairs Council and will have to pay the non-member registration fee if attending.

Please let me know if you have any questions.

Sincerely,

Eligiblity question:

I received an email today regarding the eligibility of Lebanon and Grenada veterans. apparently there are some confusions... here is my reply, with some research, i think will benefit you in case you are being asked the same questions...

Here is the original message:


"Maybe I am looking in the wrong areas but when I look for eligibility for the Grenada area, it either don't show up or I see a statement such as "Congress has not enacted legislation that would make the periods covering the 1983-1984 Lebanon crisis or the invasions of Grenada and Panama wartime service.92". Can you link me to something or send me a congress act which declares this as a wartime? I guess I am one of them stubborn ones that just have to see it in writing somewhere. You attention to this is appreciated. ....And "Merry Christmas" to You and all your Staff!"


In effect, Lebanon and Grenada are not Congressionally declared wars. Since the Constitution of the United States divides the war powers of the federal government between the Executive and Legislative branches: the President is the Commander in Chief of the armed forces (Article II, section 2), while Congress has the power to make declarations of war, and to raise and support the armed forces (Article I, section 8). Over time, questions arose as to the extent of the President's authority to deploy U.S. armed forces into hostile situations abroad without a declaration of war or some other form of Congressional approval. Congress passed the War Powers Resolution of 1973 in the aftermath of the Vietnam War to address these concerns and provide a set of procedures for both the President and Congress to follow in situations where the introduction of U.S. forces abroad could lead to their involvement in armed conflict.

The War Powers Resolution of 1973 is a United States federal law providing that the President can send U.S. armed forces into action abroad only by authorization of Congress or if the United States is already under attack or serious threat. The War Powers Resolution requires that the president notify Congress within 48 hours of committing armed forces to military action and forbids armed forces from remaining for more than 60 days without an authorization of the use of military force or a declaration of war.

After Republican President Ronald W. Reagan dispatched U.S. Marines to Lebanon in 1982, he reported to Congress, along the lines mandated in the War Powers Act. With a Republican majority in the Senate but a substantial Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, Reagan's military initiative encountered considerable opposition in Congress, resulting in persistent challenges to the deployment of troops in Beirut. The congressional challenges, motivated primarily by narrowly partisan political considerations, weakened and undermined the Reagan Presidency's negotiating position with Syria and with the various warring political factions in Lebanon, thereby making the situation in which the Marines were involved a whole lot more dangerous than it would been in the absence of congressional challenges.

In late 1983, however, congressional leaders worked out a compromise authorizing the President to keep the Marines in Lebanon for a period of eighteen months. Approved by the two houses of Congress, the compromise was sent to the President for his signature.

In other military actions initiated by President Reagan, he proceeded without invoking the War Powers Act and, in general, acted as if his military initiatives did not require congressional authorization in advance. A notable example was the U.S. invasion of Grenada on October 25, 1983. Seeing a serious threat to American national interests in the southern Caribbean region, Regan had the National Security Council and Joint Chiefs of Staff draw up a plan for the U.S. military operation in Grenada, explained the situation to Democratic House Speaker Thomas P. "Tip" O'Neill, and informed him of the presidential decision that had already been made, as regards what was to be done about the situation. Speaker O'Neill, top leader of the overwhelming Democratic majority in the House of Representatives, indicated that, if the Grenada mission turned sour, Congress would not accept responsibility for the fiasco, that responsibility for the disaster (and its attendant political costs) would be borne either by the President alone or by the President and the Republican Party. Accepting responsibility for the operation, Reagan sent U.S. military forces to Grenada, effecting liberation of the small island nation from the Marxist-Leninist (Communist), pro-Cuban dictatorship that had been established through a coup d'etat.

Shortly after the American invasion of Grenada had begun, all resistance was overcome, since the greater part of the Grenadan population welcomed the invading forces as liberators. A rapid sequence of events ensued: U.S. citizens were safely evacuated from the island, the Cuban agents and so called "construction workers" (in reality, heavily armed and well trained paramilitary personnel) were expelled, the despotic Marxist- Leninist regime was overthrown, and a political coalition committed to democratic elections and more favorably disposed toward American interests was allowed to assume governing authority. Faced with a fait accompli, the U.S. Congress, after the fact, applied the War Powers Act, declining to grant an extension to the 60-day time limit and, in effect, requiring U.S. military forces to be removed from Grenada no later than December 25, 1983. However, the U.S. troops did not leave Grenada until June, 1985.

Therefore, the mechanism was there to enact the War Powers Resolution to justify Lebanon and Grenada, President Regan, however, did not fulfill his executive duties in compliance with Congress to resolve the conflict.

The Department of VA at this time does not recognize Servicemembers of this conflict to be eligible for wartime benefits. Therefore, The American Legion in support of our fellow veterans and recognizing their sacrifices, at the 19th Convention, passed a resolution to recognize operations in these countries. Please visit http://www.legion.org/documents/resolutions/08n124.pdf for review of this resolution.

To conclude, please keep in mind that The American Legion, although federally chartered, is a grassroots organization guided by the collective wisdoms of our membership. While our dates of eligibility reflects Congressionally declared period of war, it is not strictly bounded by congressional actions. Our eligibility dates are solely determined by our membership, amended at times to reflect the need for service to our fellow veterans. Under these conditions, The American Legion has seen fit to expand our eligibility dates to those veterans thereby ensuring their protection under civil engagements.