Letter Written to National Headquarters

I received no response. 

Then I heard that Commander Foster was to visit our state on his tour so I purchased tickets to the dinner and asked him at an opportune moment to have a private conversation with him. 

He and I stepped aside and I spoke with him. 

His response was totally unsatisfactory to me so I then wrote this explanatory letter to the National Judge Advocate and National Adjutant:

Gentlemen:

I am a member of the Auxiliary …concerned about an incident that occurred at the National Convention in Milwaukee, Wisconsin last September. 

A detailed account follows:

On September 26, 2010 I sent the enclosed letter, marked personal on the envelope, to National Commander Jimmie Foster, fully expecting to be taken seriously and to receive a response by letter or e-mail.  No answer was forthcoming … Needless to say, I decided to attend the dinner and see if I could speak to him. 

The following events transpired that evening.

… Commander Foster was at the bar when I asked if I could have a personal word with him, which he readily acceded to when he finished talking with someone. We stepped aside in the room and he asked what I wanted. I said I wanted to talk with him about my letter that I had sent in September about his polar bear pins. 

When it was not immediately clear that he recalled the letter, I handed him a copy which he scanned. I repeated my concern in the letter that he should not have been handing out the pins because it was disrespectful of female veterans and Auxiliary members.  

His first response was that they “were not his pins, they were Department pins.”  I said that it seemed that they were his since he was the one handing them out and I explained that I felt his action and similar activities were not acceptable from an officer of the Legion on Legion property or at Legion functions since they seemed to condone disrespect. 

He said “as National Commander what do you expect me to do?” and I said that as National Commander he should let the Departments know that such activities were against Legion policy. His response was that National cannot tell the Departments what to do, and that anyway Alaska has been handing out the pins for 60 years and that even if he did take some action it would not keep the pins from being given out. In fact it would “probably make them collector’s items”. My response was I realize this would not prevent any Legionnaire from giving them out on their own, but it would show that the Legion thinks it is not an action becoming a Legionnaire. I told him that in the past we have done many things that are not acceptable now and the Legion should come into the 21^st century and confront issues that denigrate women. 

He simply stated that he did not intend to do anything about this and said that if he had offended me personally he apologized. I said that, obviously, I was offended, but he was missing my point that I felt that the female veterans and the Auxiliary members were being disrespected and that was my issue. He repeated that if I was offended personally he apologized. Then he asked if he had actually given a pin to me. When I said no, he said then he was offended because I was eavesdropping on his conversation with the others in the lobby. In a very condescending tone he then said “Besides, I haven’t handed any out since National Convention.”  At this point I figured that I was getting nowhere, said thank you for his time and left the conversation…

About a week later, the Post … Commander called the Department adjutant on a totally separate matter
and was told that the Post had embarrassed the National Commander and that he should keep his people in line if he wanted to move up in the state command.
(The then Commander is running for Third District Commander). 
I am a member of the Auxiliary, so the Commander has no say in what issues I bring up to the National Commander and in any case I do not see how he could fail to appreciate my position in this matter. 

No one that I have talked to about this has indicated that I do not have a legitimate complaint… I have been considering this matter ever since and still feel that the Legion needs to take action to raise the consciousness of its members , particularly the officers, that such apparently sexist/ racist actions will not be tolerated.  It was pretty clear to me that the National Commander does not “get it”! If at any time he had indicated that he recognized that his action was inappropriate and would try to see that the culture of the Legion was more respectful of women, I probably would not be writing this letter.  I am equally disappointed that my Department Commander backpedalled as fast as he did instead of continuing to support my position.

I realize that you will not wish to make this directly related to Commander Foster’s actions and in truth that is only one of many such inappropriate activities that should be curtailed. So I am asking that whoever in the National American Legion sets and distributes policy directives creates one that addresses this overall issue either separately or in the bylaws and distributes it to all the Departments. Please let me know how you intend to address this matter. Thank you.

Sincerely,

I received this response dated June 20, 2011: