VFW Post 1216 Hosts Centennial Celebration Next Weekend

September 7 – On August 15 of this year, Austin VFW Post 1216 celebrated its 100th anniversary, and this coming weekend will celebrate the anniversary with four days of events.

The festivities will begin Thursday with a ribbon-cutting at the VFW, followed by bingo on Friday. On Saturday, the festivities will move to Cedar River Golf Course in Adams for a two-person contest, then return to Austin for a live concert from 4:30 to 10:30 a.m.

Sunday will be a day for families with bouncy houses, free hot dogs, root beer and root beer floats. Then at 5:00 that evening there will be a ceremony where the time capsule will be packed and sealed.

“We’d like to see a big group of people here,” said former VFW commander Scott Wiechmann, who now serves as a trustee after Justin Hutchinson became the current commander.

Site 1216 was established on August 15, 1924, and has housed veterans and their families throughout its 100-year history.

Wiechmann said it was no small accomplishment to have been a part of the community for so many years.

“That’s a long time for any organization,” he said. “Being active for 100 years is a long time.”

“The VFW does a lot for our veterans and their families,” he continued. “It shows that all the veterans serve their country and then they come back and they’re still in the community, serving and supporting their country, supporting their communities, supporting their youth. I think it says a lot about the organization as a whole that it’s been able to stay and remain solvent. An entity that helps the community.”

At its core, the VFW has played a critical role in both honoring and serving veterans. Through these activities, they support veterans in the community in any way they need.

However, this initiative goes beyond that, as the VFW has an impact in so many different areas, whether it is honoring deceased veterans or supporting the VFW Post 1216 baseball and hockey teams, as well as the Boy Scouts.

The VFW also supports schools in the county. All of this adds up to a big undertaking for the VFW, which is the only one in Mower County.

“We do things that build community and strengthen community ties and allow them to continue doing what they do,” Wiechmann said. “To have a baseball team, to be able to have scouting, to be able to support a school band.”

One of the challenges the Veterans of Foreign Wars organization has faced over the years is declining membership—something relief organizations around the world are having to deal with.

In 1974, Wiechmann said the Austin VFW was the largest union in the country, with 2,500 members. Today, that number is about 205 members.

“There are thousands and thousands and thousands of veterans who are eligible to join the VFW, and many of them haven’t joined yet, or they’ve joined and aren’t really active yet, and a lot of that has to do with them being younger veterans,” Wiechmann said. “They have careers, families, a lot of other things that are working for them.”

That doesn’t mean things aren’t improving, though. Post 1216’s current leadership is made up of veterans from Iraq and Afghanistan, which shows there’s interest in getting involved in VFW activities.

“Ultimately, and this is what we’ve discovered in our position, if you stay with them long enough and they see you’re doing things in the community that they believe in, they’ll join,” Wiechmann said. “They need to see that you’re doing something and you’re not just an old boys’ club where there’s a bar and that’s it.”

Of all the things the VFW has done for the community in its century of existence, its most important role has been serving veterans, and that goes beyond supporting them. It has been an opportunity for brotherhood among people of the same background.

Wiechmann himself appreciated it very much.

“It’s just hanging out with other veterans,” he said. “They understand what you’re going through and they understand where you’ve been. A place where you can come and do something together as veterans.”