Texas VFW launches 'virtual' post

AUSTIN (KXAN) - Micah Burnett is a busy man. He works for TexVet , an initiative of the Texas A & M Health Science Center College of Medicine . As a communications specialist in the college's Round Rock headquarters , Burnett works to connect military veterans with the myriad government and private non-profit assistance programs available to them.

It’s a big job. The short transition period from military to civilian life leaves time for little more than a cursory introduction to such programs. As a result, many vets don’t get the services they desperately need.

The work leaves Burnett little time for outside activities, including the Veterans of Foreign Wars , widely known as the VFW.

‘I would not want to join an organization unless I could devote some time to it,” said Burnett.

That, though, was before he heard about a new VFW post that has no brick-and-mortar home. It’s meetings require just five members to actually be present for a quorum. Everyone else can join in online. It’s the country’s first virtual VFW post.

“Maybe,” said Burnett, “there would be the excuse: Oh, I don't have time to take two or three hours out of my day, or once a week, or once a month, even, and go meet with people.

“But if I can sit down at my computer for 20 minutes, there's really no excuse. So I think the appeal lies there.”

That was the thinking when retired Army 1st Sgt. Bob Gear and his friend, Jason Doran, got into a discussion about the decline in the number of VFW posts around the country, as the older veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam begin to age and pass away.

“Nine posts are closing a year in the Department of Texas VFW,” said Gear. “After all the recruiting efforts, they're generally 2,000 members short.”

What would happen, though, the men asked themselves, if an online post could welcome busy young veterans to an organization that still works to protect their benefits in Washington and in American society in general?

Burnet jumped at the opportunity and became a charter member.

“There are still all the formalities of a VFW meeting, I believe, following Roberts Rules of Order and the protocol that's native to the organization,” he said.

“Our plan is to transition to Google+. That way we can see one another, similar to Skype. We'll be able to look one another in the eye and talk.

“I think it can really boost the membership of the organization and that's important because the organization lobbies for veterans' benefits.”

That kind of talk is music to Gear’s ears.

“I'm a perfect example,” he said. “I have two young children at home. So my days are full and I'm extremely busy at night, so I don't think about the VFW.”

Of course, veterans had children at home back in 1950, as well, and VFW ranks swelled then.

“Life, now, moves very fast,” Gear observed. “It's a different life that we have in 2012 than we had in 1950. All the pressures that are on families: sports, school activities, whatever it is; this is a great way to integrate something as important as VFW into their lives.

“We can have a young veteran at a football game with his children and he can participate or track what's going on.

“We could have a member deployed to Afghanistan; even though he may miss the meeting time, he can go back the next day and see what was discussed and add his input.”

The Austin veterans worked hard to convince state and national VFW leadership to experiment with the idea. It’s a test launch and everyone involved knows there will be some issues to work out.

But when the VFW brass officially installed the post and swore in the new members, there was a sense of glee in the air.

“They all seemed to be very enthusiastic,” said Burnett, “and they wanted to learn how to set up Facebook pages for their posts, how they could update their post web sites.”

So the cyberspace bug appears to be spreading throughout the organization and there is excited hope that the idea will turn the membership decline around.

Quietly, though, in the background, everyone involved has a name on their lips. Army Staff Sergeant Christopher Kiernan, a central Texan, who was one of Gear’s good friends in Iraq, was killed in action in 2007.

Gear learned the news as he returned to combat from a “rest and relaxation” break.

“Right as I went on leave,” he said, ”I had one of my old Humvee drivers; he was blown up by a pressure plate IED in Ramadi.

“So the day I landed back in Germany, I went and visited him in Landstuhl . He was a double amputee below the knee. So, you had that; you had a great deal of emotion seeing the family and the kids.

“And then you come back, go back into the tour and as soon as you get there, you receive news like this.”

So now, the country’s first cyberspace veterans group has a name: VFW Post Kiernan .