This month, and every month, we celebrate, appreciate and honor our military veterans and their families. Thank you to all who served!
BY THE NUMBERS
Those who’ve served are a small, select group; only about 7% of American adults are veterans, while only about 1% were active-duty military as of 2018 per the U.S. Census Bureau; this equals around one million active-duty military today. By comparison, as of 2020, there were 1.6 million military children living in the U.S. – not the total number of children born to veterans, but the number of children who have one or more parent currently serving on active-duty or in the reserve, and the U.S. Department of Defense estimates that around 15 million adult Americans consider themselves former “military brats.”
WHO ARE WE?
Every VFW Auxiliary member is the family member of a VFW-eligible veteran and many of our members are also veterans themselves. Some, like Past National President Carla Martinez, are dual members of the VFW and Auxiliary, while others served honorably but not on foreign soil and are members of the Auxiliary, and we thank them throughout Veterans and Military Families Month, as we celebrate and recognize them alongside our VFW members and other veterans in our communities.
We exist as an organization because of our veterans, and we know firsthand the sacrifices of those who love and support them, especially those who have stayed behind when their loves ones went off to war. Our earliest members joined under male relatives who fought in the Spanish-American War, though membership numbers swelled during and after World War I, and most of our current members joined under men and women who served in World War II, Korea, Vietnam, Desert Storm, Afghanistan and/or in other conflicts between 1940-2024.
PLEASE REACH OUT
If you joined the VFW Auxiliary under a veteran who served prior to World War II, or if you were a child of a service-member born and/or raised abroad, please reach out to us for inclusion in an upcoming feature for either the E-Newsletter of VFW Auxiliary Magazine.
PRESIDENTIAL GREETINGS
Click this link to read the 2024 Presidential Proclamation of this special month and click the video below to watch special greetings from National President Brenda Bryant for Veterans Day and Thanksgiving.