Years after their honorable discharge, Ozark County's veterans continue to serve

As America ­prepares to honor its military men and women Monday on the Veterans Day holiday, many veterans in Ozark County, and across the nation, quietly continue to serve. Although out of uniform now and maybe decades after their honorable discharge, they find ways to keep helping their community, and especially their fellow veterans.

Four veterans groups operate in Ozark County: the American Legion, the Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association, AmVets and the Veterans of Foreign Wars. Officers of all four groups told the Times last week they need more members so that they can continue to provide organized support to their communities and to their fellow veterans. Spouses, both men and women, are invited to join the groups’ auxiliaries. For various reasons, the local veterans groups lost active members during the covid pandemic. “Everybody went in a hole during covid, and a lot haven’t come out,” said AmVets Commander Grant Carlson, referring to the veterans groups’ membership and finances.

Membership dues for the groups are less than $50 per year, “and even if they join and don’t come to meetings, it helps us,” said VFW Post 5366 Quartermaster Butch Winslow. The membership dues help the groups pay bills and perform outreach, and the membership itself helps the groups survive as qualifying official affiliates of their national organizations. 

“We encourage them to join us in supporting our veterans out there, and supporting our community,” said Carlson. “We can always use some help, even if it’s just your membership dues.”

In addition to welcoming new members, the local veterans groups appreciate the support of the communities where they operate, including financial donations. And while giving back to their communities is an important part of each organization’s goals, the officers also said that, in being part of the group, veterans find powerful fellowship that is unique to men and women who served in uniform. 

Help wherever it’s needed, even in death

Ozark County’s veterans groups try to help any local vets, whether or not they are members. Some of the most common requests are for rides to medical appointments or help acquiring Veterans Administration benefits or completing paperwork processes. 

As an example, VFW Post 5366 Commander Robert Liming said, the VFW is working to help an area veteran get VA assistance to make his home wheelchair accessible after he suffered a debilitating accident. 

“We do a lot of things that nobody knows about, but we need help,” said Quartermaster Winslow, a former VFW commander. “It’s not just an old man’s smoking and drinking organization. That’s the idea some people have, but we’re more than that. Anything a vet needs, we’ll bust our backs trying to help.”

The Isabella VFW post has service officers who help vets deal with paperwork or VA benefit matters. If the problem can’t be handled with local assistance, the veteran is referred to state or national service officers. “We have their phone numbers,” Winslow said, adding, “VFW is the main organization that helps fight for all our vets’ rights and the help we need.” He quoted former President Donald Trump, who’s credited with saying, “No one fights harder for our veterans than the VFW.”

Winslow has taken several veterans to medical appointments, including trips to the VA Hospital in Little Rock, Arkansas, or to VA facilities in Branson or Springfield. “I get one or two calls a week from guys saying they need help,” he said.

He described two current VFW members who “pick up a couple of ladies whose husbands were killed, and they take them shopping when they need something.” 

Winslow has also performed the solemn duty of picking up veterans’ final remains that otherwise would have gone unclaimed. 

“No one was there to claim the ashes, so I went and got them,” Winslow said.

He has also arranged for Honor Guards to come from the VFW post in West Plains to render full military honors to veterans as their remains are buried. And while the VA supplies a headstone for every veteran, sometimes the VFW helps with the paperwork for acquiring the stone or with getting the stone placed on the grave.

“The main thing I want these vets to know is, we’re there for them,” Butch said. “I don’t know how many times I’ve met a vet who’s going through some problem, and I tell them, ‘You don’t have to fight this alone. We’re here for you.’”

Butch Winslow's wife, Ruby Winslow, retired chief of the Timber Knob Volunteer Fire Department, is very active in the VFW Auxiliary, which also assists with the group’s community support efforts. Now retired, she was previously employed by the VFW as its facility manager. “Right now, we’re working with a vet who needs warm clothes and a heater,” she said. “In the past, we’ve helped when someone had a big electric bill. Anymore, we’re so small, that’s out of our reach, but we’re hoping to get back to where we could do that again.”

The group welcomes donations from the public, and it also sponsors raffles and hosts other events to raise funds. 

Hoping to make it easier for members of VFW Post 5366 to feel connected when they’re unable or reluctant to attend monthly meetings at the VFW Hall, Commander Robert Liming has made it possible for off-site members to connect “virtually” to the meetings through online Zoom connections on their phones, tablets or computers. This also helps former-resident members continue to be a part of the group and stay connected to their veteran friends here after they move away but continue to pay Post 5366 dues, Liming said. 

Partner organizations,  working together 

In all of their community projects and activities, the VFW is supported by AmVets, which shares the Isabella VFW Hall as its local headquarters. “We do things together, and together we’re stronger,” said Grant Carlson, the AmVets commander.

One difference in the two partner groups is that, to become a VFW member, a veteran’s discharge document, the DD 214, must show that he or she served overseas in a military campaign. Before a member is accepted, the VFW checks his or her DD 214 against its official list of campaigns that grant eligibility.

 AmVets, which recently celebrated its 75th anniversary as a national organization, is open to all veterans who have an honorable discharge, regardless of when or where they served and including those who served in the National Guard and Reserves. Post 154 in Isabella is one of 24 Missouri affiliates. 

The VFW and AmVets groups here pay new members’ first-year dues; members start paying their own dues in their second year. Some veterans belong to both groups. 

 Veterans groups’ auxiliaries are made up of the spouses of members, both men and women as well as their descendants, such as grandchildren. The auxiliaries work alongside the veteran members in a wide variety of community-outreach projects. Some of those projects focus on school-age youth; the VFW and AmVets teach flag etiquette and sponsor school-supply drives and Voice of Democracy essay contests at nearby Lutie School. State VFW scholarships are available for graduating high school seniors.  

AmVets and the VFW have also sponsored community flag exchanges, swapping old or tattered flags with free new ones. And they hold flag retirement ceremonies each summer in honor of Flag Day, sometimes accepting for retirement as many as 300 old flags that area residents have turned in throughout the year at the VFW and Masonic halls and other collection sites. 

Members also put flags on veterans’ graves in the Isabella and Lutie cemeteries in honor of Memorial Day. 

The groups donate to the Ozark County Food Pantry, and they’ve also hosted community and/or family events for holidays such as Halloween, New Year’s Eve and Easter. “Until covid hit, we gave away three kids’ bikes and helmets every year,” said Ruby Winslow. “We have to save up now, and I hope we can do the bike giveaway again in the future.”

The biggest events

The biggest and best-known events hosted by the VFW and AmVets are the two upcoming free community dinners they serve on Thanksgiving Day and Christmas Day. On those two holidays, the public is invited to Hartman Hall, the VFW facility’s smokefree banquet room, for a free holiday feast, open to everyone, with serving beginning at noon. (Hartman Hall is named for the late Norman Hartman, a past post commander.)

The annual events are always popular attractions that are put together with lots of work by the veterans groups and generous donations from the community, including turkeys, hams and other food as well as cash. 

“We all kind of pitch in and do it together,” said Carlson. “I have a big smoker, and I’m going to smoke six turkeys.”

In most years, about 100 area residents have attended each of the dinners. “But last year, we had an even bigger turnout. We served about 125 people,” said Ruby Winslow. 

The dinners are free, but "there’s a basket where people can pitch in a little money if they want to and they’re able to,” Ruby said. “But they don’t have to.”

When possible, VFW volunteers deliver meals to area residents who request them.  

The dinners require a lot of hard work by the VFW and AmVets. And, with the smaller membership rolls due to covid and other challenges, the community dinners put a strain on the organizations’ budgets. But “as long as we’re able, we’ll keep doing them,” Ruby said. Then she explains with this story:

“Several years ago, I had been here cooking for three days, and Butch and I got up and came over here on Christmas Day to help with the dinner,” she said. “We were tired and missing being with our own family, and Butch said, ‘I don’t know why we have to be here today.’ But then we pulled into the parking lot, and there were several older vets sitting there, talking to each other and laughing. I pointed to those guys and said, ‘That’s why we do this. They would be home by themselves.”

Butch nodded his head, agreeing. And then they went into the VFW Hall and went to work. 

Contacting Ozark County's veterans organizations

While this story has focused on the VFW and AmVets, Ozark County’s other two veterans groups also welcome new members and invite inquiries. 

VFW Post 5366 and its auxiliary meet at 10 a.m. on the second Saturday of every month at the VFW Hall at Highways 160 and HH in Isabella. The bar in the VFW hall is open from 3 p.m. to 1:30 a.m. Thursday, Friday and Saturday. For more information, contact Commander Robert Liming at 417-651-3098 or Robert.Liming37@gmail.com, or Quartermaster Butch Winslow at 417-989-1970 or chiefruby@hotmail.com

AmVets Post 154 and its auxiliary meet at 1 p.m. on the second Saturday of every month at the VFW Hall in Isabella. For more information, contact Commander Grant Carlson at 417-712-3113 or Grantc1956@yahoo.com. 

American Legion Post 374 in Bakersfield welcomes all veterans who have an honorable discharge. It’s also open to active-duty service members, including those serving with the Reserves and National Guard. Meetings of the Legion and its auxiliary are held at 6 p.m. on the second Thursday of each month at Legion Hall, 2 Mullins St. in Bakersfield. The Bakersfield post, featured in the May 22, 2024, edition of the Times, is the only one of the four Ozark County veterans groups that is led by a woman, Commander Isabeau “Beau” Ennis. For more information, call her at 661-380-8244 or contact Post Adjutant Vince Drexelius at 417-372-2993 or vadrex@gmail.com.

The Combat Veterans Motorcycle Association is open to veterans with an honorable discharge, as well as active duty National Guard and Reservists. Commander Ross “Big Al” Allison said each chapter has “full members,” who served in combat; “support members,” who served “noncombat”; and Auxiliary members. Members must have a licensed motorcycle over 600cc with a motorcycle license endorsement and proof of insurance. The local, Gainesville-based group, Chapter 4-12 “Dirty Dozen,” is best known for the popular Poker Run fundraiser ride it hosts each year out of the Antler restaurant here. CVMA also sponsors fundraiser raffles. 

Funds go to “help our veterans in our local communities,” said Allison, who added that the chapter’s motto is “Veterans Helping Veterans.” Meetings are held at 1 p.m. on the second Saturday of each month at different locations within the Chapter 4-12 region to accommodate members who live in different areas, he said.

“Our chapter has 46 brothers and sisters who continue to make this chapter a success in helping our local veterans in difficult times," he said. For more information about joining CVMA or attending a meeting, contact Allison at 417-686-0586 or RossMAllison@yahoo.com.