Since moving to Madison, I’ve received regular phone calls from an organization called Wisconsin AmVets, asking for donations. I’m not in the habit of listening to telephone solicitors (especially after the no-call list came around), but these fine folks were asking for a donation for The Troops. For the VA hospital! For bingo night! How could I refuse? I let them put me down for a $30 pledge, and waited for the envelope to arrive. A week later, I’m not giving them a red cent. Instead, I’m giving triple my pledge to the Disabled American Veterans, and I hope you’ll join me.
Outside of not usually donating to telemarketers, I’m also in the habit looking into who wants my money before I give it away. So I did. And as it turns out, it wasn’t just bingo night they wanted a donation for.
The guy on the phone said he wanted money to get homeless Vets off the street in this bitter Wisconsin winter. According to AmVets website, they also wanted it to lobby for "actions that will... defeat the threat of terrorism aimed at exploiting America’s free and open society and weakening the strength of freedom-loving nations... oppose entering into any treaty that would place America’s service members under the jurisdiction of an International Court... allow military forces to train without adverse interference of environmental regulations... maintain strong military aid and assistance to the Republic of Korea and continue strong relationships and exchanges with the Republic of China (Taiwan)... ensure appropriate control at our nation’s borders and reestablish sensible immigration policies." He said that they were trying to ensure that Veterans received their promised benefits. He left out that their definition of Veteran’s benefits included "seek[ing] to overturn a 1989 Supreme Court decision that allows the U.S. flag to be burned, torn, trampled, or otherwise physically desecrated under the guise of free speech... Since the Court’s 5 to 4 decision, the only way the American people can reclaim their right to protect Old Glory is through a constitutional amendment. Such an amendment, which AmVets strongly supports, provides that "Congress shall have the power to prohibit the physical desecration of the flag of the United States."" He said they were Veterans’ voice in government; he didn’t specify that voice sometimes had more important things to do, like pile on John Kerry. He reminded me of the debt we owe our veterans; he apparently forgot that my money would be going instead to "The AmVets Americanism Program: Where Students, Teachers, and Veterans can work together to educate schoolchildren about the American way of life." Whatever that is. Apparently the military is integrally involved in it.
So here was my problem. I support the troops. I do support increasing their benefits, I do support governmental and non-governmental assistance for soldiers coming back from war, and I sure as hell want to get anyone who’s outside in these sub-zero temperatures into somewhere warm, let alone some guy just back from patrolling Sadr City. But while I support the members of our military, I absolutely refuse to support militarism of the sort AmVets seems to propound, and I most definitely don’t support dishonesty. And yet, I’d made a pledge. Sure, I could say that it was made under false pretenses, but it wasn’t AmVets I’d made a promise to, at least in my mind – it was the Vets themselves.
And that realization was what prompted my donation to the Disabled American Veterans. It wasn’t a choice between helping out or holding out: it was a choice between giving to some telemarketer (and it turns out he was a telemarketer, by the way. AmVets uses for-profit fundraisers, according to the materials they later sent me), or giving to one of the most widely-respected Veteran’s organizations in the country, an organization that sticks to core principles, operates with unparalleled financial efficiency, and supports the troops in the most important way, regardless of what cockamamie meat grinder they’ve been thrown into this time.
In the space of half an hour, I went from potentially reneging on a commitment to understanding and honoring its true spirit. For everyone here that joins me in giving to the Disabled American Veterans, that telemarketer’s call will have done a little more good after all.