Long Beach’s only VFW post appeals national organization’s decision to close the local branch

Long Beach’s only post for Veterans of Foreign Wars is poised to fight the national organization’s decision to shutter their branch.

Its members opted during a Saturday, May 11, meeting to formally appeal the decision the VFW made last month to pull the branch’s charter for failing adhere to the organization’s bylaws, among other lapses.

Once the VFW’s national headquarters receives the certified letter notifying the organization of Post 8615’s decision to appeal, its leaders will have 30 days to decide the local chapter’s fate.

The Long Beach branch’s decision to appeal came as just over a dozen members of VFW Post 8615 settled into a wood-paneled room at 2805 E. South St. to discuss the ongoing rift between the local chapter and its state and national overseers.

Post 8615’s Commander Randy Dillenbeck and its Quartermaster Richard Dykens explained to attendees how the branch got to where it is today.

The chapter had been in trouble for some time, Dillenbeck said, and received its sixth suspension in seven years last May for failing to submit quarterly financial reports on time. But even after Dykens took control of those duties and brought the post’s books up to date by December, he said, state and national VFW leaders continued to “nitpick,” he said, seeking out smaller and smaller infractions.

“We would hope any Post that is about to have its charter revoked would fight to keep it,” Joe Davis, a spokesman for VFW headquarters, said in response to Post 8615’s Saturday vote.

“But,” Davis added, “the onus is on the Post to prove they can overcome past discrepancies.”

Dykens agreed with Dillenbeck’s assessment, noting that many of the things higher-ups began to focus on after the post’s finances were in order were not unique to Post 8615.

“I could walk into any post that’s supposedly OK,” Dykens said, “and I could find discrepancies.”

“They tried to hit us for not having a health permit,” Dykens added. “We haven’t had a health permit since, what, 2012?”

Spokespeople for the state and national levels of the VFW have repeatedly declined to comment on the exact violations that have led Post 8615 to the brink of closure. But they have said the chapter’s leaders have been given many opportunities to bring the post back into alignment with the organization’s rules and regulations and have failed to do so.

“The biggest problem is that, this year, they were given a lot of chances to correct,” Commander Lamont Duncan, who oversees all chapters in California, said Wednesday, “and every time the inspection crew would go back, things weren’t done. So after a while, you can’t keep kicking that can down the road, unfortunately.”

But the branch’s members on Saturday seemed united in their belief that the national organization is overstepping its bounds in its attempt to close the post altogether.

“I don’t know why, instead of trying to help somebody out, they say, ‘Oh, hey, we’re just going to shut them down,’” Post 8615 member Jack Janes said.

For the branch’s Chaplain Paul Goudsmit, the national VFW’s move is beyond illogical — it’s out of step with the organization’s own mission.

“Everything the department is doing — supposedly attempting to close us down — has nothing to do with what the purpose of the organization is,” Goudsmit said, pointing to a flag emblazoned with the VFW mission.

The flag noted that the VFW’s purpose, among other things, is “to strengthen the common bonds of the men and women who have served and who are currently serving in our military.”

For Goudsmit, closing a chapter — particularly one that has over 200 members in its ranks — flies in the face of that goal.

As for what will happen next, Dillenbeck said all he can do — after he sends the VFW the official appeal letter — is wait.

“We’ll see what happens,” he said, “once they hear about this meeting.”