7th District commander’s October report

Hello, Mighty Seventh!

Congratulations to our new national commander, Daniel Seehafer, from the other great state of Wisconsin.

I can’t believe another month has come and gone. There were so many things happening in the month of August and well into September.

First, the 104th National Convention in Charlotte, then on to Legionville for the Harvest Rally, followed by Camp Ripley for the National Security/Foreign Relations briefing and the Camp Ripley Open House, followed by the groundbreaking for the new Minnesota Military & Veterans Museum, which will open in 2026.

Please make sure you are reading the rest of the Legionnaire to see what happened at the National Convention. The 7th District did submit resolutions, some of which passed, went to committee for further clarification and others that did not pass.

This was my first experience attending a national convention. How amazing it was to meet Legionnaires from other states!

To all of the district executive officers, area vice commanders, committee chairs and post leaders, I am issuing you a challenge for two things.

1. Area vice commanders, look at the National Guard and Reserve armories in your areas and go and talk to the senior NCO or unit commander and get them thinking about an enlisted soldier in their unit that they would recommend for the American Legion Outstanding Enlisted Awards. At the same time, leave some literature about The American Legion.

Many of the soldiers in the Guard and Reserve don’t think they are eligible to join The American Legion and some Legionnaires themselves don’t know they are. If they have attended basic training, they have a DD214, which shows they were on active duty during that time and are eligible to join The American Legion.

Also, if you would like information on the ESGR award for employers I can get you that information.

2. Posts, I would like to see all of us working on renewing and recruiting members. The challenge I will put out there is that we will meet the membership timelines, which all of you got with your membership packets. If each of us works at increasing our membership, we will easily meet this. I know I sound like a broken record, but, again, with strong numbers, our voices speak louder, and we will continue to show the power of The American Legion and continue to make a difference in lives of our veterans from all walks of lives.

The new Montevideo Veterans Home is my project. I would like to raise $5,000 to $10,000 to support our veterans with things that we all take for granted — our daily essential needs. My theme is “Veterans Helping Veterans.” When making a donation, make sure you highlight that this is for the Commander’s Project in the memo portion of your check and send it to our finance officer.

Call me with any questions you many have.

Remember our strength lies in our numbers.