Andy Romey, assistant editor of The American Legion Magazine (right), interviews D.J. Douglass, second vice commander of the campus legion post and president of UA's Military Veterans Association. The magazine will feature UA's fast-growing post in a future issue.
AMERICAN LEGION POST 808 at The University of Akron, which has rapidly grown to 154 members since its founding last summer, will be featured in an upcoming issue of The American Legion Magazine.
Magazine staffers visited the UA campus on Thursday, March 12 to interview some of the 106 student veterans who are active in the post along with 48 faculty, staff and alumni. A story about the student-run post is likely to appear in the magazine’s August or September issue as well as on its website, legion.org/magazine, said Andy Romey, assistant editor. The magazine reaches 2.3 million members each month.
Post 808 is one of about a dozen active posts on college campuses around the country and only the second in Ohio. In less than a year, Post 808 has gained a reputation for outreach activities that help student veterans transition from the military to college life and from college life to the work force, said Steve Motika, co-chair of UA’s Military Veterans Steering Committee. About 1,200 military veterans are enrolled at UA.
National model
Though older, non-student veterans typically run campus posts, the top leaders of Post 808 are student veterans of the Iraq-Afghanistan era. That arrangement is believed to be a first and could emerge as a national model, said Jason Graven, internal affairs director for the American Legion in Ohio.
Besides talking with student veterans, the magazine reporting team sat in on a Military Veterans Steering Committee meeting and a Post 808 meeting in the Musson Veterans Lounge at InfoCision Stadium. Post 808 also set up an informational display in the Student Union food court at lunchtime.
American Legion posts began appearing on college campuses a little more than three years ago, serving veterans coming home from the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan. The college posts help attract a younger veteran population to the American Legion, started by World War I veterans in 1919.
In addition to its veterans outreach efforts, Post 808 last fall installed the POW/MIA Chair of Honor at InfoCision Stadium. The chair is to remain perpetually empty as a reminder that POWs and MIAs always have a place at home.
Also last fall, Victory Media, the veteran-owned publisher of G.I. Jobs magazine, named UA a Military Friendly School for the sixth straight year.
For more information about American Legion Post 808 and other services available to military veterans at The University of Akron, visit uakron.edu/veterans.
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Media contact: Roger Mezger, 330-972-6482 or 330-730-4215 or rmezger@uakron.edu