AMVETS

Founded in 1944 as the American Veterans of World War II, AMVETS is a veterans’ organization that expanded its membership base in the subsequent decades to accept as members all honorably discharged veterans since World War II.

As the veterans of World War II began to come home, many wanted to join a veterans’ organization. The Veterans of Foreign Wars (VFW) accepted veterans from all overseas wars, and in 1942 the American Legion—the leading organization of World War I veterans—voted to accept World War II veterans as well. Although thousands of the new veterans joined these established groups, many others saw them as the domain of older, more conservative veterans and unrepresentative of the generation that served in World War II.

During the war years, recently discharged veterans began to form small associations, mainly on college and university campuses. At George Washington University in Washington, D.C., Elmo Keel founded the Student Veterans of World War II. Also in Washington, a government worker, Andrew Kenney, formed the National Veterans of World War II. Keel and Kenney began to discuss merging their organizations, as well as the scores of other recently formed World War II veterans groups, into one national association. Nine organizations sent representatives to a 1944 meeting in Kansas City, Missouri, and on December 9 the delegates created the American Veterans of World War II, which the newspapers quickly shortened to “AMVETS.”

As World War II veterans returned home in large numbers after 1945, AMVETS experienced substantial growth. Within a year of its founding, AMVETS boasted a membership of 60,000, with more than 100 local chapters across the nation. It established its national headquarters in Washington and held its first national convention in Chicago in 1945. In 1947 AMVETS received its congressional charter, the first World War II veterans group to do so. By 1948, AMVETS membership had reached 200,000 and it was the largest veterans’ organization in America composed exclusively of World War II veterans.

Despite such impressive growth, AMVETS had difficulty competing with more established veterans groups. By 1946, the American Legion claimed 1.9 million World War II veterans and the VFW 1.6 million. Indeed, there was little to distinguish AMVETS from the established veterans’ organizations. Like the American Legion and the VFW, AMVETS used military terminology, e.g., “commander” for leadership positions and “posts” for local chapters. As did other veterans’ groups, AMVETS created auxiliary organizations for wives and sons of members, established a “fun making” group known as the “Sad Sacks” (named after the popular World War II comic strip character) and sponsored youth programs, memorialized war dead, and promoted “Americanism.” Indeed, the only characteristic that distinguished AMVETS from the American Legion and VFW was its exclusively World War II veteran membership.

AMVETS also had difficulty staking out political ground. Like most veterans’ groups, AMVETS was officially nonpartisan, with a primary political goal of promoting veterans’ welfare. The group often joined with other veterans groups to press government at all levels for action on veterans’ readjustment issues such as education, housing, and medical care. AMVETS also commented on the political questions of the day. Generally speaking, AMVETS tended to be more liberal than either the American Legion or the VFW. During the Korean War, for example, AMVETS was one of the few veterans’ groups to support Pres. Harry S. Truman when he fired Gen. Douglas MacArthur for insubordination. The membership, however, was often deeply divided over political questions. At the 1946 national convention, furious debate erupted over whether AMVETS should condemn striking coal miners, and, in the end, it took no position on the issue. Indeed, with its support for universal military training, aggressive Cold War internationalism, and support for the suppression of communists and other “radicals,” AMVETS differed little from the leading veterans’ groups.

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