Honoring Their Pledge: Chapter 1054 Continues to Live Up to VVA's Founding Principle in Northeast South Dakota

BY Trevor Strunk

VVA’s founding principle remains its lifeblood and guiding star: Never again will one generation of veterans abandon another.

Implied in that principle, though not always stated outright, is a pledge not to abandon Vietnam War veterans either, a responsibility that becomes more urgent as they age and face health concerns and sometimes the need for food and shelter. For Northeast South Dakota Chapter 1054, that responsibility is an opportunity.

Based in Watertown and serving a wide swath of surrounding rural northeast South Dakota, Chapter 1054 - named VVA Chapter of the Year in 2021 - is made up of energetic, philanthropic members who feel a strong responsibility to their fellow veterans.

“We don’t focus on ourselves,” said former chapter president and current Board member Phil Braeger. “Our focus is on the needs of veterans in our community.”

Courtesy Chapter 1054

Often working with other VSOs, the chapter provides local Vietnam War veterans and other veterans in need with household supplies and food during the long South Dakotan winters. The chapter also offers transportation for local veterans to distant hospitals and even has assisted one active-duty Air Force member with travel costs to Ellsworth AFB. In keeping with VVA’s founding principle, Chapter 1054 is less concerned with when a veteran served than with whether help is needed.

Chapter Senior Vice President Jim Hanson summarized this wide-ranging approach to helping veterans while discussing a video the chapter uses to educate students and community members about the Vietnam War: “Some of us were boots on the ground; some weren’t, and it doesn’t matter, because everybody had a job.” That philosophy extends to the ambitious and impressive fundraising and charitable work that defines Chapter 1054.

One of the chapter’s signature efforts is a members’ trip to Washington, D.C., that includes a day of bus travel, three days in the city, and a day of travel home. The chapter-funded excursion allows members who might not otherwise have the chance to visit the nation’s capital, pay their respects at The Wall, and to take in other sites, including the Korean War Veterans Memorial, the World War II Memorial, and the National Native American Veterans Memorial.

Courtesy Chapter 1054

During a recent trip, chapter members were touring the White House when a guard invited them to step closer for photos. When a passerby asked why they were recieving special treatment, the guard, Phil Braeger recalled, answered simply: “They paid for it. They earned it.” That sentiment – that veterans have already paid for the things “given” to them – is something that is ingrained in all of Chapter 1054’s programs. “We try to use terms that don’t downgrade veterans,” said chapter Treasurer Bob Frink. “It’ll be a food ‘distribution,’ not a ‘handout,’ for example, because there’s sometimes going to be a stigma for ‘getting something for nothing.’”

Courtesy Chapter 1054

The altruism and care Chapter 1054 extends to fellow veterans is based in large part on members’ memories of how they were treated when they came home from wartime service. It was “horrible,” chapter member Noel Cummins said. “It took 10 to 15 years to get the country back together again to say, ‘welcome home’ to veterans.”

When Millbank honored local servicemembers heading to the Persian Gulf War in the early 1990s, Chapter 1054 members could not help thinking of the many Vietnam War veterans who had received no such recognition. That experience helped lead to the chapter’s emphasis on honoring veterans at funeral services, as well as a joint effort by area VSOs to establish a state veterans cemetery in Sioux Falls.

The chapter also developed a program for local schools, libraries, and churches, in which five or six members present a short video about the Vietnam War and its impact on those who served, followed by a Q&A session. Students have written letters of thanks after seeing the presentation.

Recently, the chapter also helped an active-duty Air Force servicemember who had not received his salary and could not afford moving expenses for himself and his wife to his next duty station on the West Coast. When the couple vowed they would pay the money back, the chapter refused.

“You don’t get it,” Phil Braeger told them. “We don’t want it back. It’s a gift.”

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