Minot Post

Honored to be part of Minot Post

By ELOISE OGDEN

Regional Editor eogden@minotdailynews.com rent Thomas has the top office in the Minot Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 753. The native of Litchville, Minn., Thomas became commander of the Minot VFW Post last year and will serve another term the next coming year. The VFW year runs from July 1 to June 30.

Earlier Thomas was elected junior vice commander. As a junior vice commander, the next step is commander in about two years but when the commander resigned, Thomas moved into the commander’s position later last year.

“I’ve been a member of the VFW since 2006,” said Thomas. “My Uncle Mike was the post commander in my hometown and based off mine and my brother’s first deployment he had signed us up for the oneyear membership and shortly after that I deployed again. I just bought the lifetime membership to the VFW,” Thomas said. When he was considering to join the Minot VFW Post, he said, “Actually I called to get his permission to see if it was alright for me to transfer out here. He said, ‘No, we’d love to have you active.’ It’s been a whirlwind ever since.”

Thomas was active duty in the U.S. Air Force for about 11 years. He and his wife, Heather, a Minot native, were living in Minnesota for a time but in fall 2012 moved back to Minot.

Thomas was a traditional Guardsman – one weekend a month and two weeks in summer. Then in December 2017 he became a full-time Guardsman. Now he is first sergeant with the North Dakota Air National Guard’s 219th Security Forces Squadron at Minot Air Force Base.

“The VFW prior to me becoming commander adopted our unit so the 219th is adopted by this post,” Thomas said.

“I think approximately from my squadron alone we have 25 active members right now, which is kind of a huge number from where we started at,” Thomas said.

To get new members Thomas said several of the members have been attending various events where veterans will be, providing information and also asking if they are interested in joining the VFW.

Thomas said being a member of the VFW and serving as the Minot post’s commander is significant to him.

“First, I’m honored to be the commander. It’s just an honor to be a part of the post and watch it grow,” he said, adding, “We’re doing spaghetti feeds and different activities and more involved in the community. It’s fun to see the regrowth of what our predecessors had established before us and that’s what I find most beneficial to myself as being a part of that.”

He said they are also able to help veterans ensure they are receiving the benefits that they are entitled to and referring them to to the Veterans Service officer at the Veterans Administration in Fargo.

He said some Disabled American Veterans members are also Minot VFW members “so there’s some great crossovers between those two organizations.

The Minot VFW post has also become more involved with some of the private organizations at Minot Air Force Base and supporting their activities.

As far as membership, he said they did quite well this past year. “I think we had the second largest growth in the state of North Dakota. We were at 107% membership from the previous year. We got beat by one post,” he said. He said that was a small town in central North Dakota. “They had 10 members and recruited one so they had 110% but percentage-wise we were second. As far as actual new members I think we probably did the best in the state.”

This year the Minot post is observing the 100th birthday of its existence.

“We also just received notification that we are an All-American post.” Thomas said. He said the VFW honor is based on various programs and activities throughout the community including membership, poppy drives, Voice of Democracy and Patriot’s pen essay contest.

The wAuxiliary and the Cooties (Military Order of the Cootie, a national honor degree membership association) are an important part of the post and its activities.

“We’re excited about it this year to actually be back in the schools,” Thomas said. Information on VFW-sponsored programs geared for youth will be provided at three local schools, Nedrose, Bishop Ryan and

Minn., Thomas became commander of the Velva.

When major flooding of the Souris River occurred in 1969 and again in 2011 the Minot VFW Post 753 building and area land on the east side of the city were extensively damaged, but thanks to volunteers everything was rebuilt.

“There’s a lot of sweat equity that was put into this place in particular by a handful of members. I wasn’t here at the time but I think they did a pretty good job of gutting it ahead of time and salvaging as much as they could. I don’t know that there were a lot of outside resources that were hired to put it all back together,” Thomas said.

He said the VFW also is available for events. Membership is not required to rent space there for weddings and other events in the building or nearby park.

“Our post meetings are the second Tuesday of every month at 7 o’clock if anybody is interested in coming down and seeing what we’re about. We’d love to entertain them,” Thomas said.

MINOT

Photos by Eloise Ogden/MDN

ABOVE: Trent Thomas became commander of the Minot Veterans of Wars Post 753 last year. LEFT: The Minot Veteran of Foreign Wars Post 753 and Ladies Auxiliary entered this unit in the North Dakota State Fair Parade this past July.