AMVETS Department of North Carolina
68th Annual State Convention June 1, 2 & 3, 2012
North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
National Commander’s greeting Gary L. Fry
AMVETS National Commander
April 5, 2012 Greetings to the members of the AMVETS Department of North Carolina
Serving
As this group of dedicated veterans gathers for the annual state convention, I want to extend my best wishes to each of you on behalf of AMVETS National Headquarters. Thanks to your continued hard work and dedication, AMVETS remains at the forefront of veterans’ service across America, serving veterans of all conflicts and continuing to adapt to the ever-changing needs of our nation’s veterans.
with pride
For more than six decades, AMVETS has built a solid reputation of tireless services to our members in posts and departments all across the country, and AMVETS Department of North Carolina is no exception. In the last year, each of you has demonstrated your commitment to our nation’s heroes through a broad range of innovative programs and volunteer efforts.
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As National Commander, I want to take this opportunity to thank your department, its officers, and your members for your continued devotion to veteran’s service, and I challenge you to do all that you can to serve our veterans, past, present and future. As AMVETS, you continue to improve the lives of your fellow veterans, and the communities in which you live, keeping with the greatest traditions of our organization and our nation. With this in mind, I wish you a most productive and successful convention in 2012. Veterans Helping Veterans,
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A M V E T S National Headquarters 4647 Forbes Boulevard Lanham, Maryland 20706-4380 Telephone: 301-459-9600 Fax: 301-459-7924 E-mail: amvets@amvets.org
Gary L. Fry AMVETS National Commander
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
Biography AMVETS National Commander
Gary L. Fry 2011-2012
Gary L.Fry of Sugar Grove, Pa., was elected to serve as AMVETS National Commander for 2011-2012 during the 67th annual AMVETS National Convention in St. Louis, Missouri. Fry previously served as AMVETS First Vice Commander with responsibility for membership outreach and representing AMVETS National Headquarters at veterans’ events around the country. Fry is a life member of AMVETS and served as commander of Sugar Grove, Pa. AMVETS Post No. 50 for nine years, Department of Pennsylvania Commander, served on the National Long Range planning committee and various other committees. Gary is also a former member of the Pennsylvania State Veterans Commission and is a former president of the Pennsylvania War Veterans Council. Fry still serves on the advisory board of the Pennsylvania Soldier’s and Sailor’s Home. Fry served in the United States Army for three years including a tour in Vietnam where he served as a squad leader. Now a retired electronic instrument technician, Gary has been married to his wife Judy for 41 years, and has a son and daughter, and three grandsons.
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
State Commander’s Greeting
GREETINGS AMVETS AND GUESTS: “TIME FLIES WHEN YOU’RE HAVING FUN”.
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his year has been a very rewarding time for me as your State Commander. It seems like last week we just got started. Throughout this year, there were great high marks and some low marks. One of the most rewarding things was we opened our First New Career Center for veterans in Albemarle.
There are a lot of great opportunities in this program for anyone who will take the time to follow through this process. We also had a new Women’s Clinic open in Fayetteville. On a sad note, this state has lost several of their great leaders. These men will be greatly missed with their recognition of achievements. These members have set a high standard for us to follow. I can truly say it’s been an honor to have worked with such great leaders. Our membership has improved this year but not as rapid as I would have liked. We still have opportunities to grow and open new posts within our state. I do appreciate the fine staff and personnel who have worked with me this year. Thanks to all the prior officers have assisted me also with great knowledge. I can truly say God has blessed AMVETS with good leadership in the past. We’re looking for greater things to come in the future. As I stated in our first session in the beginning of this year. “I can do all things through Christ which strengthens me.” - Philippians 4:13.
Again, I thank everyone for their hard work and May God Bless You and Your Families. Lacey Shepherd AMVETS Dept of NC Commander
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
National Executive Committee Man’s Greeting
68th Annual Convention Another year has come to an end. Now, it’s time to come together and ELECT a new slate of Officers. I hope that all offices that are open will have a candidate to run. Remember every office requires work and dedication to serving our veterans and our membership. We have worked hard this year. Our Membership is UP, and Program Reporting has increased. I hope we continue with this growth, next year. Remember, every Post must reach 100% in their membership to be eligible for Awards. This year we had 100 % of our Posts reporting programs. DO NOT LET THEM SLIDE. Thank you for a Good year, and I hope we have a Good Election at this year’s Department Convention. Thank You for your support and for your trust in me as your National Executive Committeeman.
Yours in Service to AMVETS NEC - PDC MICHAEL W. ROZMARYN
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
State President’s Greeting
AMVETS on the web AMVETSNC.ORG
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his year is coming to an end and it has been a wonderful one for me. We started off by forming a new Auxiliary, Albemarle #910. In January, we were very pleased to have a visit from our National President, Lynda Taylor. She shared some ideas with us that were very helpful. We also had a very successful Reverse Drawing to benefit our Scholarship Fund and Ways and Means. Then came the Spring DEC meeting in Hendersonville. This was new territory for us and very enjoyable. The picnic was a very nice touch where everyone could visit in a pleasant atmosphere. Several of our Auxiliary members joined AMVETS Commander Shepherd for a visit to the Charles George VA Center in Asheville for “Because We Care Day.” Nada Curphey, of Auxiliary #920, donated twelve lap afghans to wheelchair patients and they were distributed by Auxiliary members. Looking forward to a very productive Department of North Carolina State Convention in June.
Linda Starnes AMVETS Dept of NC Ladies Auxiliary President
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
AMVETS DEPARTMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA
JUNE 1, 2 & 3, 2012
SHERATON - FOUR SEASONS – GREENSBORO, NC AGENDA
Friday – June 1
Registration/Banquet Ticket Sales Committee Meetings Service Foundation Finance Committee Convention & DEC Site Committee
3:00 – 6:00 p.m. 6:00 p.m. 6:30 p.m. 7:00 p.m.
Saturday – June 2
PDC Breakfast 7:30 a.m. Registration/Banquet Ticket Sales 9:00-11:00 a.m. Joint Opening Session w/Sons of AMVETS & Auxiliary 8:30 a.m. Memorial Service VAVS Annual Committee Report Community Service Annual Committee Report Americanism Annual Committee Report Excuse Ladies s& Sons of AMVETS Public Relations Annual Committee Report Women Veterans Annual Committee Report Legislative Annual Committee Report Post Development & Mentoring Annual Committee Report Grievance Annual Committee Report Brotherhood Annual Committee Report History Annual Committee Report Veterans Employment Annual Committee Report VA Service Annual Committee Report Membership Annual Committee Report ROTC Annual Committee Report POW/MIA Annual Committee Report Honors & Awards Annual Committee Report Honors and Awards Banquet Luncheon 1:30 p.m.
Sunday – June 3
Registration Closing Business Session NEC Annual Report Convention & DEC Site Annual Committee Report District Commanders Annual Reports Commanders Annual Report Service Foundation Annual Report Finance Committee Annual Report National and Department Resolutions/CBL Other Business Nominations/Election of 2012-2013 Officers Installation Ceremony
8:00 a.m. 9:00 a.m.
AGENDA Continued on page 10
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
Lacy Shepherd 2011-2012
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
AMVETS DEPARTMENT OF NORTH CAROLINA
JUNE 1, 2 & 3, 2012
SHERATON - FOUR SEASONS – GREENSBORO, NC AGENDA Continued from page 7 Dept. Executive Committee Meeting (Immediately following Installation Ceremony) Registration (Includes Banquet Ticket) - $50 Auxiliary, Sons of AMVETS & Guests Banquet Ticket - $40
This is the AMVETS Department of North Carolina State Convention beginning at 8:30 a.m. on Saturday morning. Officers and Post Delegation should be in the meeting room in order to have a voting quorum at all times.
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
THUMBNAIL HISTORY OF THE BANJO By Bill Reese
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E A R L Y S T A G E S anjos belong to a family of instruments that are very old. Drums with strings stretched over them can be traced throughout the Far East, the Middle East and Africa almost from the beginning. They can be played like the banjo, bowed or plucked like a harp depending on their development. These instruments were spread, in “modern” times, to Europe through the Arab conquest of Spain, and the Ottoman conquest of the Balkans. The banjo, as we can begin to recognize it, was made by African slaves based on instruments that were indigenous to their parts of Africa. These early “banjos” were spread to the colonies of those countries engaged in the slave trade. Scholars have found that many of these instruments have names that are related to the modern word “banjo”, such as “banjar”, “banjil”, “banza”, “bangoe”, “bangie”, “banshaw”. Some historians mention the diaries of Richard Jobson as the first record of the instrument.. While exploring the Gambra River in Africa in 1620 he recorded an instrument “...made of a great gourd and a neck, thereunto was fastened strings.” The first mention of the name for these instruments in the Western Hemisphere is from Martinique in a document dated 1678. It mentions slave gatherings where an instrument called the “banza” is used. Further mentions are fairly frequent and documented. One such is quoted in Grove’s Dictionary of Music and Musicians from a poem by an Englishman in the British West Indies in 1763: “Permit thy slaves to lead the choral dance/To the wild banshaw’s melancholy sound/”. The best known is probably that of Thomas Jefferson in 1781: “The instrument proper to them (i.e. the slaves) is the Banjar, which they brought hither from Africa.”
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M I N S T R E L E R A hite men began using blackface as a comic gimmick before the American Revolution. The banjo became a prop for these entertainers, either individually or in groups. By the early part of the 19th century, minstrelsy became a very popular form of entertainment. Joel Walker Sweeney and his Sweeney Minstrels were already popular by the 1830s. By 1843 the Virginia Minstrels began to do an entire show of this blackface entertainment and this is usually the date used to mark the beginning of the minstrel era. The Virginia Minstrels had 2 Banjo players, Dan Emmett and Billy Whitlock, a pupil of Sweeney. In addition Minstrel shows usually had a fiddler, a bones player and a drum/tambourine. We know from early Banjo instruction books by performers like Thomas Briggs, 1855, Philip Rice, 1858 and Frank Converse, 1865, that the minstrel style of playing was the “downstroke”, what we call frailing today. This style was learned from the slave performers themselves.
Briggs in Banjo Instructor of 1855 describes playing as follows: “In playing the thumb and first finger only of the right hand are used; the 5th string is touched by the thumb only; this string is always played open, the other strings are touched by the thumb and first finger...The strings are touched by the ball of the thumb and the nail of the 1st finger. The first finger should strike the strings with the back of the nail and then slide to.....” M I N S T R E L T O P A R L O R From the 1840s through the 1890s the Minstrel show was not the only place to see banjo players. There are records of urban Banjo contests and tournaments held at hotels, race tracks and bars, especially in New York to the enthusiastic cheering and clapping of sometimes inebriated crowds. Most of the contestants were white in the early contests but there are records of black players taking part in the post-civil war era.
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
During this time (c. 1857) metal strings were invented. It seems they were cheaper than the normal professionally made gut strings and more long lasting then the home-made fiber or gut variety. Urban bar room players, minstrel show performers, slave performers, southern country players, all these performers were to come together during the Civil War (1860-1864). Regiments and Companies formed Minstrel groups and bands to entertain themselves during lulls in battle as did sailors aboard gunboats. The most famous of the Civil War banjoist was perhaps Samuel Sweeney, the younger brother of Joel Sweeney, who was an orderly of Jeb Stuart. Stuart apparently liked banjo music and when he wanted to relax he had Sweeney play for him. Sweeney also entertained Stuart’s entire regiment. After the War soldiers carried the knowledge and appreciation of the instrument home to almost every corner of America. During most of this time the banjo was looked-down upon by the more well-to-do classes of the population. Articles in the papers of the day like that in the Boston Daily Evening Voice of 1866, classified the Banjo of the 1840s and 1850s as an instrument in “the depth of popular degradation”, an instrument fit only for “the jig-dancing lower classes of the community...” By 1866, however, the instrument had become a “universal favorite” with over 10,000 instruments in use in Boston alone. The cause of this sudden popularity was the introduction of the banjo as a parlor instrument. This is the somewhat misnamed “classical” period of the banjo. The banjo was played in the “classical” style which meant that it was picked with the fingers in imitation of the popular guitar players of the day. Many outstanding performers and teachers had banjos named after them that incorporated their own changes in the instrument in an attempt to make the banjo more refined and above all louder. he First World War, like the Civil War, was a watershed in the popularity of the banjo. America entered a time of isolation and turned to “American made” music for pleasure. Jazz entered the picture and the banjo became an integral part of the early jazz bands. At first it was the plectrum banjo, a five string, without the fifth string, that led the way. This gave way to the shorter neck Tenor banjo, thought to be a corruption the word “Tango” because it rose to popularity through the Tango dance craze that swept America.
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Banjo History by George R. Gibson
The diversity of America is reflected in the origin of musical instruments played by bluegrass musicians. European immigrants brought the guitar, mandolin
The stock market collapse of 1929 and the world wide depression that followed wiped out the banjo. To quote Robert Webb, “Demand for its bright happy sound disappeared almost overnight. Professional orchestras made a quick transition to the “archtop” guitar, developed in the 1920s by Gibson and others which provided a mellow and integral rhythm more in keeping with the subdued nature of the times.”
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ncle Dave Macon, the first star of the Grand Old Opry, was an extraordinary banjo player and entertainer. It is likely that black musicians as well as minstrel entertainers influenced his music. Earl Scruggs, who originated a unique style of bluegrass banjo playing, came from a mountain area where banjos and banjo songs had long been a part of the culture. Many mountain banjo songs became popular with early radio string bands, and later became bluegrass standards. When the banjo and banjo songs entered the mountains is a question that has not been definitively addressed.
and fiddle to America. The banjo came
Various writers, most from outside the mountains, have maintained that minstrel entertainers in blackface first brought the banjo to the of playing resonator guitar originated in mountains. That the banjo was foreign to Appalachia until after the Hawaii. The most uniquely American of Civil War is now a popular belief. It is maintained that the banjo was brought back by soldiers returning from the Civil War, or brought these instruments, however, is the banjo. in after the Civil War by professional white minstrel entertainers who performed in blackface while touring with circuses, medicine shows, or on steamboats. Proponents of this theory did not consult mountain historians or folklorists. Also, there are no references in the mountains during or after the Civil War that cite the banjo as a newly imported instrument. from Africa, while the unusual the style
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North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
Most contemporary historians interested in the banjo are enamored with the banjo music of minstrels, which was documented in tutors published in the 1850s and 1860s. They have ignored the history of Appalachia, while developing theories attributing the origin of mountain banjo to minstrels. The message inherent in this theory is that it was necessary for professional musicians, mostly from the north, to teach mountaineers to play banjo. I attribute this in part to the ‘hillbilly’ stereotype that grips the popular imagination. This stereotype portrays the mountaineer as either an uneducated simpleton or an uncouth savage, and certainly does not allow for creativity or racial diversity. I believe the power of this stereotype, which has been perpetuated in the popular media for over a hundred years, explains the absurd lengths to which some have gone to establish minstrels as the deus ex machina for mountain banjo music. To properly address mountain banjo history, it is necessary to first provide an overview of minstrel music.
Bluegrass Music in Western North Carolina
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or many people, the appeal of bluegrass music is that it is a relatively new form of music that sounds old. Most scholars agree that bluegrass first gained national attention when Bill Monroe and the Bluegrass Boys appeared on the Grand Ole Opry in 1945. In addition to Bill Monroe himself, this legendary band consisted of Lester Flatt (guitar), Earl Scruggs (banjo), Chubby Wise (fiddle) and Cedby Wayne Erbsen ric Rainwater (bass). The reason that bluegrass music sounds old is that it is a syntheses of many older styles of music. The earliest settlers in western North Carolina were the Scotts-Irish. Western North Carolina has long been These early pioneers brought with them a wealth of both vocal and fertile ground for the growth of bluegrass instrumental music traditions. music. In fact, no other region or state has It was mainly the pioneer women who carried on the strong vocal traditions. Often barred by local custom from playing the more raucous contributed so much to its development. instruments like the banjo or the fiddle, most women preferred to sing. More often than not, they sang the old ballads that had been passed down from mother to daughter for generations. Most of these ballads originated in the British Isles. They were carefully preserved by a culture that was bent on keeping in tact the cultural traditions of their ancestors. They preserved these ancient ballads so well, in fact, that during the years 1916-1918 English folksong collector Cecil Sharp came to western North Carolina for the sole purpose of collecting English ballads in their purest form, because in England these ballads had long been forgotten. Ballad singing in western North Carolina had a strong impact on what later became known as bluegrass music. The subject matter of most of the ballads was either murder or death. This leant a somber tone to the music. Today, this is referred to as Bluegrass music’s “high lonesome sound.” The manner in which the old ballads were sung also affected the singing styles of later bluegrass singers. The women who sang the old Scotts-Irish and English ballads normally sang with a tight voice that produced a high, shrill tone. In contrast, singers from African traditions sang with a looser voice that produced lower and more relaxed tones. Bill Monroe, who later became known as “The father of Bluegrass Music,” is the perfect example of someone who sang with the tight vocal style of his Scotts-Irish ancestors. In his case, he was able to emulate the vocal styles of female ballad singers because he naturally had a high vocal range similar to many female singers. While the women’s musical role in early pioneer life in western North Carolina was in singing the old ballads and songs, the men favored playing instruments. In particular, the fiddle was among the few treasured possessions that Scotts-Irish immigrants brought with them when they first came to America. Even more important than the instrument itself, these fiddlers brought a deep well of ancient melodies from Scotland and Ireland. Many of these fiddlers could fiddle for days without repeating a tune. This was handy because fiddlers often provided the only music for the many all-night dances that took place in backwoods communities. Because of their ability to provide much needed entertainment in rural communities, fiddlers were often held in higher esteem than doctors, lawyers or politicians. The dance tunes as played by Scotts-Irish fiddlers certainly had a strong impact on the music of this area. Not lagging far behind the fiddle in providing music for rural communities was the banjo. The origins of the banjo can be traced back nearly 4500 years to ancient Egypt. From there it spread to the Middle East and to Africa. Slaves from West Africa eventually brought the instrument to the American south where it took hold - 13 -
North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
and spread. It was in North Carolina where the banjo became a deeplyingrained part of everyday life. Both blacks and whites frequently played the banjo along with the fiddle and later the guitar for rural dances and frolics. In the mountains of western North Carolina, the banjo actually changed to adapt to local conditions. Mountain craftsmen built smaller and softer-sounding banjos using a groundhog hide for the “head” or “skin” of the banjo. These banjos were normally fretless and had wooden tuning pegs. In contrast to these homemade wooden instruments, factory-made banjos began to be produced as early as the 1870s in northeast cities. These banjos often featured mechanical tuning pegs, metal tone rings and brackets. Often produced in relatively large quantities, they were sold in Sears and Montgomery Ward mail order catalogs and soon found their way into the parlors and front porches of musicians in western North Carolina. Besides the mail order catalogs, there were other modern influences that were bringing change to the mountains of western North Carolina. The first radio station in the area was WWNC, which began broadcasting in 1927. Its first location was in the Flat Iron Building in downtown Asheville. Up the marble steps trooped local musicians carrying banjos, fiddles, mandolins and guitars. Among the popular shows was “The Farm Hour.” The radio made it possible for some dedicated musicians to “go professional” because it allowed them to advertise and promote show-dates in rural school houses. The school house shows became popular at the same time that rural roads were improved to accommodate the increasing number of cars and trucks hitting the roads. The bands that played these one-room school houses often mixed old-time fiddle tunes, banjo picking and har-
mony singing along with humor and skits from the minstrel and vaudeville show traditions. In North Carolina, it seemed that practically everyone played string music. Thus it is not surprising that many bands that performed in western North Carolina consisted of many brother duets. Local musicians like Wiley and Zeke Morris, Wade and J.E. Mainer, Jack and Curly Shelton, Homer and Callahan and Bill and Earl Bolick are but few of the best-known brother acts from western North Carolina. These men established a strong tradition of instrumental virtuosity mixed with closely blended harmony singing. In the mid 1930s, two brothers from Kentucky came to North Carolina to actively participate in the vibrant musical scene here. Calling themselves The Monroe Brothers, Bill and Charlie Monroe maintained a hectic schedule of performing nearly every night in venues that ranged from the proverbial oneroom school houses to county fairs. To promote their shows, they performed on numerous radio stations including Asheville’s WWNC, Charlotte’s WBT and Raleigh’s WPTF. They were so busy performing and burning up the rubber on their Hudson Terraplane to get to their showdates that they dismissed the idea of recording for RCA Victor records because they didn’t have time for it. They also didn’t realize the impact that being on a major record label could have on their performing career. At last, RCA Victor’s Eli Oberstein convinced them to record, which they did in a make-shift studio in 1936 in Charlotte, North Carolina. In a crowded warehouse rented by RCA records, the Monroe Brothers waxed ten sides, which included “Long Journey Home.” On these first recordings, they established the style that would mark their entire recorded efforts on Victor’s Blue Bird records: tight vocal harmonies often played at - 14 -
lightening speeds with spell-binding instrumental virtuosity. The professional musical partnership of the Monroe Brothers was not to last. The brothers’ notorious fiery tempers doomed them to go their separate ways in 1938. Both went on to form their own bands. Charlie moved to the Winston-Salem area and formed The Kentucky Partners. Bill Monroe first formed a band in Arkansas and then moved to Atlanta, Georgia. There he placed an ad in the local newspaper, looking for someone to sing old folk songs. Answering the ad was a young Cleo Davis, who played guitar and sang. Monroe hired Davis on the spot and spent several months teaching him his brother Charlie’s guitar runs and vocal stylings. By the time Monroe had finished training Davis, their sound was practically identical to that of the Monroe Brothers. After unsuccessfully auditioning at several radio stations, Bill Monroe and Cleo Davis landed a radio program on Asheville’s WWNC radio. While Monroe and his wife lived out of a small travel trailer, Davis stayed nearby at a boarding house. Not satisfied with their current sound, Monroe began searching for other musicians to give his band a fuller sound. He eventually hired Art Wooten from Piney Creek, North Carolina to play fiddle, Amos Garren to play bass and Tommy “Snowball” Millard to do black-faced comedy and play jug. Seeking greener pastures, before long, the band moved to Greenville, South Carolina. Monroe tirelessly rehearsed the band in a converted gas station until Monroe thought them ready. In 1939, with the departure of Millard, the band successfully auditioned for the Grand Ole Opry. The rest, as they say, is “history.” Monroe’s band was now known as “the Bluegrass Boys.” Members came and went, but the sound was evolving to become what we now called Bluegrass Music.
North Carolina AMVETS 68th Annual Convention Book
Be Present - Give the Gift of Membership
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Be Present - Give the Gift of Membership
Gift Membership G
ive a currently serving soldier a gift in your name for only $30. We will send a gift letter in your name to an active-duty soldier letting them know you appreciate their service and they are now AMVETS members. AMVETS is chartered by congress to help veterans and we work for them every day.
Send $30 payable and addressed to: AMVETS Gift Membership 4647 Forbes Blvd., Lanham, MD 20706
Committed to Those Who Serve