Transcript:

00:00 Hello, this is Melissa, Hale-Spencer, the editor at the Altamont Enterprise and we have with us this morning, Darlene Stanton. Welcome Darlene. Good morning to you too, Melissa. Thank you for having me today. Well, the reason I invited Darlene is because she sent an email. She often does many, many activities that she's been running for years as through the auxiliary at the local post of the veterans of foreign war and this was a chicken and biscuit dinner, which is great. No, and then she had a little sentence in there, sort of like, by the way, I'm going to be named the head of the Department of New York vfw auxiliary president. So I thought, OK, this is exciting. Let's hear all about it. So darlene, I know it's hard to start at the beginning, but when. When did you start on this path that has led you to be  the president? 

01:00 My path started when I saw my friend Terry Mcguire in star installed as our state president and I said, someday I'm going to be there and it's working on it. In June ninth, I will be installed as the Department of New York. I'm president, so department in New York. I'm not really up on the lingo. That means the whole state of New York. Yes ma'am. OK. And so the country is divided into different departments according to each state. Is that how every state has their own department? I see. And do you have even a rough idea of how many members there are and the New York department, New York. We have over 9,000. We're hoping for 10,000 members with recruitment to share. And are these all women know? Um, two years ago Congress decided that they would allow us to allow males in our auxiliaries because many of the members, the males don't go into the service, but we now have many, many, many women serving in the armed forces and an army, Navy coast guard, marines. Everybody's got a branch. And it was, it wasn't fair that we didn't allow their families to join as we did for the male members of our armed forces. That sounds right. So right here in altenmarkt, do you have male members in your accelerate? Just we do. Oh cool. The first two children were the children of our president and petty Hagrid. So 

02:35 tell me a little, um, I went through the many, many times. He had been in our newspaper for all kinds of things, but I'd like to kind of start with your, you're growing up in your personal life because I know when I was writing the obituary for your mother, so many people talked about. It's 

02:56 just how you came from family of service. 

03:00 Just tell me a little about your life growing up and how 

03:03 I'm starting with my grandmother. My mother's mother. Um, she was a private book for the governor of New York till she, until he moved on to be our thinking was our senior or senior commander and chief and everything that they did worked around helping others and mommy just brought me along. And you got so used to doing stuff for. And at that point you didn't know that they were veterans, but they were just people in our neighborhood who needed help. Elderly people, people who were hurt or people who were poor. We would. And we grew up poor ourselves. But you always gave, you always gave what you had and it just continued on. And then the more things we got into when we moved to Clarksville, then we became involved with the school called Fire Department. Um, I was riding ambulance with my bed. He was an emt and I'm frankly anthem. 

03:57 And they taught you to, um, to do things to help other people, whether it'd be emergency stuff, medical stuff, or just something that they needed in the community. Our house was kind of like the center. If anybody got hurt, people came to our house. Um, you needed to have fun. Come hang out. They came to our house. You needed help. They came to our house and you learn to help the people in your neighborhood, um, because there are others that were a whole lot less fortunate than we were. So you help people and you do it in a way that lets him know that you're getting it from your heart, not because you have to, um, because they accept it better because so many people don't want help that need help. And it's always been what I've done. And through the years, and then I joined the, I got married and I actually we did, we did volunteer stuff in school too because I worked with the police department and fire departments and when they got married I married a veteran. He was a hard stand and he was a Vietnam veteran three years in on three tours and his eligibility is what got me into the vfw and when they found out that I could cater Debbie Roberts had darlene, would you like to join the luxury? Because I was in my hospital bed when they had pneumonia. 

05:11 Oh my goodness. She goes, hey. She goes, so she got you while you were down. She says, can you write 

05:17 a letter stating that you'll accept any position that we nominate you for? And little did I know that a day we're going to make me their senior vice. And a couple months later I'm our president moved. So I became the president for like the next 10 years. It's a, it's a. and through what we did there. 

05:41 Yes. Well, as I said, this whole Sheaf of papers in front of me, but I'm just a handful of the many things you've done, but one article that stood out, it was actually written by my daughter, it was at Christmas time and you had told her every soldier needs to Christmas Elf and you were in the midst of this drive to pack up, you know, goods to send your soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan and do that and you mentioned in there this idea that part of your motivation and I'm hoping you can expand and talk to us a little about this, came from your husband's service in Vietnam where he felt when he came home on appreciated. Can you just talk a little about that and how that was a big deal? You know, not just for my health trend. For many people that read 

06:30 many soldiers that I know that our Vietnam veterans, when they came home, people spit on him. They throw things at them. They call them some really, really not. Most names. They called them baby killers. And the day that I started doing the project, I brought stuff home and my husband said to me, why are you doing that? And I said to him, why should we repeat other's mistakes? I said, do you want us to do to these soldiers what they did to you? I said, I don't think that's right. I said, no matter what you think, I said this is my project and I'm going to do it. And our project, and it wasn't just my project, but we started it from our BMW and we did amazing things with that. I had people have corporate sponsors, I had people in the neighborhood, our churches, our organizations. I'm all [inaudible], but all the food and all the things we sent over the many years that we did, we did like a half a million dollars worth of stuff and people will help. I was, I'd be in the grocery store. I was in Walmart one time and I had like three carts full of stuff. Walmart's was very generous to me and I'm still miss stuff. And those people said, can you tell me why you're buying all this stuff? I said, well, they said we send packages over to our soldiers and they said we'd like to pay for that. 

07:45 Thank you. I said, I deeply appreciate it. I said, well, your soldiers will love you 

07:50 and you know, that happened many times when people saw what you were doing. They were very supportive of helping our soldiers overseas and they still are today. 

07:58 So over the years have you noticed, how many years have you been involved in the auxiliary? Over 30 years. Thirty years. So have you noticed patriotism growing in that time and you noticed? No, 

08:16 the last time that I saw an amazing display of patriotism was 9:11. Everybody flew their flags for Memorial Day and Veterans Day that year and then the next year a little less than less. And after that I didn't know. Barely. You do see those ones who are very patriotic and we'll always support what we do for our nation. They don't come out to the parades anymore. Days when I was a child, we lived in Albany, Albany streets from the parade route, used to go for Partridge street all the way down past the capital to the foot of the hill at the end of the State Street, and today you're lucky that you could fill maybe six blocks with peoplenet, spearson sparse, 

09:02 and yet they do fill all those blocks for the St Patrick's Day parade. What is it doing? What do you attribute that to? What? Why do you think they understand it? 

09:11 They don't teach it in school anymore. They. Some teachers are amazing and they do, but like they don't put a lot of this stuff in their curriculum. They don't know that World War One and World War Two and Korean Vietnam did to keep to give them things that they have today. They have no appreciation that these men and women gave their lives their time, gave up their families for months and years to make sure that they hit freedoms to do what they do today and yeah, they have their freedoms and they just don't care that how they got him. 

09:47 There's no respect to wonder what causes that blindness to history. I was just reading, um, a survey of millennials that found two thirds didn't recognize what it was. I mean, what, what do you think causes that sort of blindness to history because 

10:04 people don't believe in Burra so they're not going to promote what you did to save our country because you had to go to war and they just don't bring it into the curriculum. I don't think it's proper to do, to teach your children about war while you're teaching them about war because it's what it, what, it's what created the lifestyle that they have today, the freedoms that they have, the right that you can go out to do something or not do something, have a choice. And it just a brilliant bothers me that, that doesn't happen. 

10:35 One of the things your posts does is, um, loyalty day, which is very unusual. And I know part of that involves children because you always have prize-winning essay is coming forward and read. So tell us a little about loyalty day and, and how that, you started that here, right? Your stores, did you view your posts really Robert too are posted. There is actually one of the things, 

11:02 the only post in our area we do, and I know they call he posts up on a rifle range rover, are the only two in our area that I knew that do. Excuse me, that I know they do loyalty day. Um, we love loyalty. Day Roberts was like the queen of our loyalty days and she did some amazing things. If many people were like her and the people that are in our post and in the American Legion world would be a better place because they don't forget. And that's our whole thing. You have to honor and remember and you don't forget. So when we do loyalty, they, we try to pick up themes for every year when we start to do stuff. When we started with, um, we found eight, even survivors all. Wow. And that was the first year of our theme. I say we got a [inaudible] with survivors. It's, which is amazing because even bag with him, they were back in their late seventies, early eighties. 

12:10 And uh, so now they're in their nineties and we still have most of them with us and we actually found a whole lot more and brought them into a full, but we can talk about them. So when we were doing the loyalty days, we started, um, was essays from our students because we wanted to wander our future and we wanted them to have the opportunity to let us know what they think. So we give them a particular theme every year for them to ride in the fifth grade. And we've had some absolutely amazing ones. Um, you can see that Ultima and school really promotes what patriotism is. It could be something simple as, who's your hero? Who's my favorite hero? What does a veteran a how to honor a veteran honor to honor a veteran was one that was one of my favorites. The girl that won, that was great. 

13:07 We actually had, um, Jason Berlin game, uh, he did a, he did a essay for us. He wanted an essay and then we put him in when he got older, into the voice of democracy, which we promote from our post, which is also go straight up to a national level. He won first place for that, for the state of New York, which was amazing. He was very. He, this is like his father and his grandfather. It's like so calm and cool and collected and they put you on. They understand. I think he did a lot from especially what they do with the funeral, you know, they have many, many effects that go through there and they see the honor and, and what they have done, but they get lost because their schools. We've tried to get other schools to participate and they just don't. They don't. For the programs that we have for Vfw, which we do voice democracy, Patriot's pen and patriots aren't for all different levels, um, of age groups and you can't get people to help you. 

14:05 Voicemail will never work with us. Um, we went up on the hill, um, Bernanke's west. La was very good about doing things with us and uh, we don't have time to put it in our curriculum and I think it's sad. It's sad that because they don't want it, that they don't allow the children to do it, so that we've been trying to work around doing that so that we helped create that feeling again because it'd be really, really nice to have a parade, which we don't have any more because it's very. Last year I guess we did because um, first of all, veterans should not have to put on their own, their own parade to honor themselves. It's not fair. And the mayor are the ones that be honored. I see. We have done them for years and years and years where you've put them together between the American Legion and the vfw. 

14:58 We switch off every are. We still all work together, but it's just hosted in each different place. And the village of [inaudible] [inaudible], they kept taking away more money and more money on what they were giving us. And uh, at the end of the day, nothing, they don't want to help. They didn't know what we did was ask them to take over doing the parade so that our veterans could enjoy doing what they enjoyed being honored for that day and they didn't care enough to do that and I think is absolutely sad. So do you have, among your. How would you describe the group of veterans that are in your posts? Are they mostly because as you're pointing out that World War Two veterans where I think the posts was founded, right? They must have largely aged out. I'm still have some amazing. One of my favorites is a one-man roll. Him Poor vitamin. I'm trying to think of the other songs on the. 

15:58 We still have some world war two. We had Korea, Vietnam and I'm wondering do any of the younger people that have come back from Iraq and Afghanistan, are they [inaudible] we have a reporter doing a story right now on just fraternal organizations and how the membership has fallen. You know, like the masons and the alcs and things and I'm wondering if it's the same with your organization. It's largely the older members that are carrying it on as opposed to. It's true, although we have seen an influx of younger members in our post, which is absolutely what they do, a great job both from the vfw part and from the auxiliary. So you do have some really because we do herself great. Yes we do. We do x, Afghanistan, Iraq, Desert Storm and they uh, they come, they come when they can. They do when they can and they, if we don't see him all the time, they come and help do the events that we do and that's absolutely wonderful because life gets in the way. 

16:58 They have families and it's hard because you've talked quite a bit about all the services you do for others, but I was wondering about, I remember you're saying to me once about your husband that he just loves going there to the post and seeing friends and talking. So tell us a little about that aspect of it. Not The service out for others, but what the post does sort of for the community that have themselves serves. Yeah. It's a place to go where they talk about their service, the the kid and they just enjoy each other's company because they all know it's almost like a peer counseling because each of them know that if anybody has a problem that they helped them take care of it and veterans tend to work better with veterans and they do an amazing job, has a problem, they'll start talking. 

17:53 Maybe this one might join in or might be just those two, but it's the best place to go for help. Some people. Yeah. It doesn't have to be. Especially Ptsd is just memories of what you did during and how it affected you. It. It's terrible in. They tried to help them in the hospital and it's very hard sometimes because they don't understand if you're giving them. Like if you came to you and he said, well, you know, I had this problem and they told me about to happen and you don't understand because you weren't there when the war is a different situation. Then we're looking across the street, having a parking, having an accident. Here is what you do over there. You put your life on the line, you signed that blank check that says I will give you my all. And some of them come back damaged. 

18:46 Um, they worked through it. Unfortunately back in world war two, they didn't recognize it and today they do and it's slowly working, but there's people out there who need help and vfw and tries very hard to help them with that to get them where they, the dad can get the help. They need peer to peer. We have group stuff and it's a good thing because they know that they can go there and they can get that help and if we can't get them help, we find them where we can get some help. It's a course they just like to just have fun and talk about the things they did and do crazy things they did in the service and it was here. Even though you're there and you're protecting our country, you still have to. You still have to have fun. And they did. So tell us a little about here and Altima. 

19:35 The Post, the role that the auxiliary plays, the role of the auxiliary plays is we stand behind our service members. We stand beside, behind them, beside them. They actually, we stand beside them, not behind them and that's how they have a, they have treated us. We helped put together the dinners, we do the dinners and the guys come down and help in women too. And we just um, we worked together because we were, were, we support all the programs that we did. We create through the, both the vfw and the auxiliary because some of them overlap. So are you raising funds to help other veterans? Uh, there's a house over for house for Christopher over and troy that you're trying to get off the ground. It helps both women soldiers and their children so that they have a place to go. They do runs for the gold star. Mothers are mothers or my project is, 

20:32 I mean I tell my list of things to ask you about because I remember some very moving. You had a tea once for the gold star mothers. Just tell us, some of our listeners might not even know what it means. Gold Star, so just tell us a little about that. Her mother is a mother, has lost her child. 

20:48 Thirty war is a Kia or after war, during due to injuries that he or she received during work on and they have a an organization called the American Gold Star mothers and were honored to have two of the funniest ones was carm Hilton and who are post his name for her son and Marge Gilbert. I forget. We had another one at this time. I just don't remember what her name was, but they were the two most active with us and they were just funny ladies around to close to. Our mothers are amazing, amazing women. They have endured something. No mother should yet. They continue to honor their children by helping other soldiers and a job. I was just at their gold star mothers dinner. We had stayed there state convention this past weekend and the Anti-vietnam Moms, they're marine lettuce soar and dorothy Iraq and star. Both beautiful women both in their nineties and still actively doing what they all do. Is helping each other and their soldiers and there's prednisone must be similar to what you were describing about the men in combat, being able to do peer counseling, her mothers that have a pain as you say, no mother should have to endure, but a particular one coming from war and maybe in dealing with the other mothers, they get some solace. They are, do they, they are an amazing group of women. They, they're always there for each other. Um, because it's just like the soldiers. You're right. Nobody understands. 

22:42 What do you think an Altima that people might sort of maybe listened to this and wake up and do the parade again? Would that help? Or is that just some good? Because I think it's so sad that it had to go away. I mean, it's hard for us to do stuff. And then like I said, you shouldn't have to pay for your own, your own pre. You shouldn't have to put it all together. You shouldn't have to do all the work. The community as a whole should be honoring our veterans in many of the communities do well. Do you think that there's been, because in world war two, almost everybody served, you know there was a draft, but there was also this sense of you don't want to and now it's almost like the people that joined the military are a separate part. I mean, do you feel that at all or there's even back then still only one percent of our. The entire population is military one percent. That's it and they just don't go in anymore. I think firstly I think that they should have just for the the just for the kids today, I'm just like other countries do you have to go on the service and serve for two years and you have to learn that day. They teach them to respect the teacher. 

23:56 It was very less likely to go to war, so he's only. I think if everyone were part of it rather than just those who 

24:06 do something to make it better or try to create a different atmosphere in life itself. Not just for the military but for our whole community and all the population. It's got gotta. It's got to get better and it's not. They have all these stabbings and shootings and all this stuff and why they don't teach your kids, you have to teach them respect and they, they don't have that anymore. They don't have the discipline from a parent. They don't have the discipline from school it. Dude. 

24:42 Well, our time went so fast. Do you have any parting thoughts? Anything that was really essential for you to have people here that we didn't get to touch on? 

24:53 The gold star mothers are going to be my special project this year, so we're going to do some rehab, these beautiful pins that we made for them and you can be, be purchased for me, but in either April or May of next year, we're hoping to have a massive motorcycle run with all of the combat vets, the American Legion riders, Patriot guard riders, and anybody else who would like to join us do this just huge run to raise funds for it, uh, in, at the end of the year. I just want to make my, leave it in a better spot than when I received it. 

25:31 Knowing you. I'm sure you will. Thank you darlene. I have one thing to say, I like to say thank you for the absolutely amazing obituary that you did from my mother when she was gorgeous. They love it. I passed out copies of it at early, was an amazing woman and I'll never forget we had this front page picture of the two of you kissing and it was you had raised all this money, I think it was for cancer, the cancer chairman for that, and she your mother herself was battling cancer and we didn't know in Hernie Jacinta and that was just a really great moment. Yeah, it says it was damaged heart prison, January donated. It is still your mother and on that sad but really important note, she'll be with me.

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