Royal Canadian Legion needs injection of youth, Afghan vet says

At my local Legion, I'm one of the younger ones!

We've had so many close in the last few years I couldn't tell you which ones are still going.

I only know of one around here that closed, but that was because the city needed the land for the LRT and the Legion didn't rebuild.

I don't know why the Legion is unpopular with youth. It's a great place to drink some beer and shoot some pool. Uncomplicated, no pressure.

Sadly what's needed to buck up the ranks is a major war. In this respect I suppose the absence of a necessity for so many posts is a good thing. We should count our blessings that we haven't needed to put millions of men in uniform for the past seventy years.

....and usually inexpensive.

When my friends and I were in our early 20's we got treated like crap in our legion. I got agitated one afternoon and told the old bitch that thought she owned the place, that in 30 years they'd need our generation to keep these places going, and here we are.

I haven't been back in any legion since.

I can appreciate that.

As far as Veterans go so am I which is really disconcerting especially since I can remember when I first joined, drinking beer with the old WWI Vets. Now they're long gone and the WWII ones that are still left aren't far behind. So unfortunately in a lot less years than I'd like to think about I'll be joining them.

But on the plus side. The other day I did see a couple of 20 year olds in there playing pool so maybe there's hope yet.

The Legion, given the lack of Military Veterans is now nothing more than a service club like the Elks and Moose, only with military paraphernalia festooning it's walls and is more akin to a museum than the vibrant military Mess it was years ago.

My guess is that there are alot more of them that will be closing in the near future than we'd like to think especially considering all the other service clubs that have fallen by the wayside because of a lack of young people wanting to participate, help their community and give a little of themselves.

Sorry to hear that but I can assure you they all weren't like that and when I joined in Swift Current I was welcomed from day one by almost "all" the members. but then again being in the military may have been a plus.

There were of course the assholes who thought that only WWII Veterans should be allowed in the doors but they were usually put in their place by the WWI Vets who informed them that they were only allowed in by their good grace.

Sorry to hear that but I can assure you they all weren't like that and when I joined in Swift Current I was welcomed from day one by almost "all" the members. but then again being in the military may have been a plus.

There were of course the assholes who thought that only WWII Veterans should be allowed in the doors but they were usually put in their place by the WWI Vets who informed them that they were only allowed in by their good grace.

It's interesting. My father was in the RCAF for four and a half years. He was a pilot who flew overseas for years ... He was on patrol when the Japanese surrendered and he was demobbed a good year after most Canadian servicemen.What he did do when he finally was was to take all of his saved-up pay and go to university.

Anyway, when he checked out the legions early after the war,.. well ... Air force! Airforce was joke! Educated? Oh, smart guy, hunh! I did ask him about it and he said that he and lots of others like him were not welcome because they weren't regular, working class guys (although Dad sure was before he joined the air force). I suppose if we lived in a small town where the Legion was the center of social life, he would have bothered but in a big, industrial urban area like Montreal, that class warfare baggage was ... still is ... hanging in the air. Anyway, Dad walked away from it. So did all off the other Veteran dad's in our neighborhood ( curiously, largely ex-air crew). I have not joined ... yet. Oor Legion is still relatively healthy , although the WWII Vets are dying off very quickly, now. People like me with Cold-War era military experience are almost non-existant and I'm certainly interested in participating. BTW, I've been in many legions ... always make a point of dragging my young family into weekend fish fries all over rural Ontario and we have always been welcomed warmly, without exception. I have nothing at all against the Legion, myself. It's just that it was never part of our family life while growing up.

Sorry to hear that but I can assure you they all weren't like that and when I joined in Swift Current I was welcomed from day one by almost "all" the members. but then again being in the military may have been a plus.

There were of course the assholes who thought that only WWII Veterans should be allowed in the doors but they were usually put in their place by the WWI Vets who informed them that they were only allowed in by their good grace.

It's interesting. My father was in the RCAF for four and a half years. He was a pilot who flew overseas for years ... He was on patrol when the Japanese surrendered and he was demobbed a good year after most Canadian servicemen.What he did do when he finally was was to take all of his saved-up pay and go to university.

Anyway, when he checked out the legions early after the war,.. well ... Air force! Airforce was joke! Educated? Oh, smart guy, hunh! I did ask him about it and he said that he and lots of others like him were not welcome because they weren't regular, working class guys (although Dad sure was before he joined the air force). I suppose if we lived in a small town where the Legion was the center of social life, he would have bothered but in a big, industrial urban area like Montreal, that class warfare baggage was ... still is ... hanging in the air. Anyway, Dad walked away from it. So did all off the other Veteran dad's in our neighborhood ( curiously, largely ex-air crew). I have not joined ... yet. Oor Legion is still relatively healthy , although the WWII Vets are dying off very quickly, now. People like me with Cold-War era military experience are almost non-existant and I'm certainly interested in participating. BTW, I've been in many legions ... always make a point of dragging my young family into weekend fish fries all over rural Ontario and we have always been welcomed warmly, without exception. I have nothing at all against the Legion, myself. It's just that it was never part of our family life while growing up.

I always figured it was a lot of the REMF's who never saw combat or never even got deployed overseas that had the attitude problem with outsiders coming into 'their' club. My mom used to volunteer at a Legion when they did free dinners for seniors. She said most of the real combat vets stuck to themselves and kept quiet but the biggest loudmouths seemed to be the peacetimers who never did more in uniform than drive trucks around the base, count equipment, and load/unload stuff at the loading docks.

Sorry to hear that but I can assure you they all weren't like that and when I joined in Swift Current I was welcomed from day one by almost "all" the members. but then again being in the military may have been a plus.

There were of course the assholes who thought that only WWII Veterans should be allowed in the doors but they were usually put in their place by the WWI Vets who informed them that they were only allowed in by their good grace.

It's interesting. My father was in the RCAF for four and a half years. He was a pilot who flew overseas for years ... He was on patrol when the Japanese surrendered and he was demobbed a good year after most Canadian servicemen.What he did do when he finally was was to take all of his saved-up pay and go to university.

Anyway, when he checked out the legions early after the war,.. well ... Air force! Airforce was joke! Educated? Oh, smart guy, hunh! I did ask him about it and he said that he and lots of others like him were not welcome because they weren't regular, working class guys (although Dad sure was before he joined the air force). I suppose if we lived in a small town where the Legion was the center of social life, he would have bothered but in a big, industrial urban area like Montreal, that class warfare baggage was ... still is ... hanging in the air. Anyway, Dad walked away from it. So did all off the other Veteran dad's in our neighborhood ( curiously, largely ex-air crew). I have not joined ... yet. Oor Legion is still relatively healthy , although the WWII Vets are dying off very quickly, now. People like me with Cold-War era military experience are almost non-existant and I'm certainly interested in participating. BTW, I've been in many legions ... always make a point of dragging my young family into weekend fish fries all over rural Ontario and we have always been welcomed warmly, without exception. I have nothing at all against the Legion, myself. It's just that it was never part of our family life while growing up.

That's where I guess the environment was different. With 2 parents who were WWII Vets the Legion was always part of our life and like you mentioned, probably more so because of the smaller community environment. Although there were still other vibrant service clubs in town but thinking back alot of the members in the Legion also belonged to them and had joined as legacies to.