TEST Veterans struggle with VFW shutdowns due to governor’s orders (copy)

Published 8:15 pm Friday, August 28, 2020

An unlikely business has been caught in the sweeping bar shutdowns ordered by Gov. Greg Abbott: Texas’s 297 Veterans of Foreign Wars Posts.

“We’re stuck,” J.R. Nielson, commander of Post 1799 in Tyler, said. “There’s no light at the end of the tunnel.”

Because many of the VFW posts get more than 51% of their sales in alcohol, the Texas Alcoholic Beverage Commission — and the governor — consider them a bar, closing many of these posts’ doors and services to veterans statewide.

“VFWs are more than a place to sit around the bar and drink beer,” Nieson said.

The State Commander of VFWs, Richard Shawver, agrees. Since the shutdown of these posts started on June 26, he’s sent two letters to Abbott, pleading to reopen these services to veterans.

“This is a travesty that is having unintentional serious detrimental effects on our veterans and fellow Texans that can no longer acquire the services our VFW Posts provide,” Shawver wrote in a July 1 letter.

Nielson believes that VFWs are places where veterans can gather and remember their time in the military, to share similar experiences that “civilians” won’t understand. But, he says, they don’t focus on the hardships of war.

“Nobody wants to think back to the ugly times when there were green fireflies going this way, and red fireflies going that way, but you do want to go back to the camaraderie and the brotherhood,” Nielson said.

But if veterans do get “misty-eyed” over fallen soldiers and friends, Nielson said, it’s not looked down upon among their fellow comrades.

“That’s the kind of thing you can do in here, but not at Applebee’s,” Nielson said.

Nielson says he is lucky to have a “very successful” post, and he expects to have the funds to make it through the shutdowns with money left over for restocking.

“A lot of them (posts) do not have that luxury,” Nielson said. “It’s a very distinct possibility, actually probability, that a good number of those posts will close their doors.”

The VFW in Longview, Nielson said, permanently closed last week.

VFWs also provide other services for veterans, including counseling on medical paperwork and philanthropic projects.

“This last year alone, these members completed 154,456 voluntary community service projects for a total of 167,622 hours driving over 582,234 miles for a total benefit to Texas communities of $4,193,280.42, according to the Internal Revenue Service,” Shawver wrote.

Locally, Nielson and his team at the post also help veterans, even during the pandemic. Over the course of the shutdown, he’s helped move furniture for a Korean veteran and cut down an 80-foot dead tree in another veteran’s yard.

Both Nielson and Shawver expressed concern about the veteran suicide rate. Prior to the pandemic, roughly 22 veterans who suffered from post-traumatic stress syndrome committed suicide every day, Nielson says. He expects it to rise to a figure closer to 25 to 30 suicides daily amid the shutdowns.

Over the shutdown Nielson said, he’s done veteran outreach for those who suffer from PTSD.

He’s already taken two firearms away from veterans because he feared for their safety. Nielson directed them to counseling services, but he worries about the isolation they and other veterans are facing.

“If we were open, he could’ve just come right here,” Nielson said.

Veteran Services Officer Michael Roark at the Smith County Veteran Services office is also worried about the suicide rate. His office was shut down for nearly a month in April. During the closure, the office saw 267 phone calls — in pre-pandemic months, phone calls were only numbered around 140.

“I was (worried about veteran suicide rates),” Roark said. “That’s why we still manned the office … and the phones. At least give them somewhere to call and talk to somebody … I worry, too, because of the lockdown, that veterans are thinking they can’t reach out for help.”

In a letter to Abbott on Aug. 19, Shawver wrote that VFWs were contemplating surrendering TABC licenses just to reopen these essential services for veterans.

But if Shawver does decide to ask posts to give up their TABC license, Nielson says, it would cost all of 1799’s disposable income.

“If I relinquish my private club licensure, I relinquish all my income,” Nielson said. “And I do not support that.”

Instead, Nielson wants Abbott to look at VFWs “differently than the civilian section.”

“We’ve all been extensively trained in nuclear, chemical and biological warfare,” Nielson said. “We know (more) about PPE than most (civilian) medics do … we know how to don a mask.”