American Notes Veterans

Viet Nam Combat Survivor Richard Anderson espouses some maverick ideas for a post commander of the conservative Veterans of Foreign Wars. "Our job," says Anderson, head of Post 5888, Santa Cruz, Calif., "is to keep people from becoming veterans." Last April the 36 members of Post 5888, most of them Viet Nam vets, passed a resolution calling for "a policy of self-determination and nonintervention in Central America" and an organization-wide debate on the Reagan Administration's militant stance in the region. Though the proposal was overwhelmingly rejected by the 9,800 V.F.W. posts at the national convention in August, the Santa Cruz dissidents had one of their members deliver the resolution to the Sandinista government in Nicaragua. Said Anderson: "We wanted to let those fellows know that not all the people up here, especially veterans, agree with what's going on."

Other veterans posts were outraged, some of them calling Anderson's group "unpatriotic" and "traitors." Last week the V.F.W.'s national leadership drummed Post 5888 out of the organization, claiming it misrepresented the group's position. In Santa Cruz the unrepentant vets filed a court petition for reinstatement. Post 5888, which has grown to 112 members as a result of the controversy, says it wants to stay in the V.F.W. to provide some fresh thinking for hidebound older members. "The organization is going to be a dead dinosaur," said Anderson, "unless there are some creative new ideas."