VFW District 8 Newsletter

CWO5 Randle M. Tolliver, USN (Ret)

Commander 

For veterans in crisis, the Veterans Crisis Line's number is "988” then press "1”.

Homebound veterans requiring assistance please contact any member. 

Veterans experiencing, or at risk of homelessness, please contact any member or the National Call Center for Homeless Veterans at (877) 424-3838.

Buddy Checks! Please call or go visit elderly or homebound veterans and see how they are doing and if they need help.

We, the VFW, are always looking to have veterans who are eligible and want to continue serving our community to join us. If you are interested, please contact any member or post. 

Reminders:

The next VFW District 8 meeting will be on 8 February 2026 at VFW Post 2210 in Ste. Genevieve. The address is 852 Memorial Dr, Ste. Genevieve, MO 63670 and the meeting starts at noon.  This will also be our Voice of Democracy, Patriots Pen and Teachers of the Year Awards Presentation, and all members are encouraged to attend.  There will also be ZOOM access at the posts. More information will be provided via Facebook and to the post Commanders. 

The next meeting of the VFW Department of Missouri Council of Administration will be held on February 20-21, 2026, at the Resort at Lake of Ozarks 3076 Bagnell Dam Blvd, Lake Ozark Missouri. All members are encouraged to attend.

For your information:

For severely disabled veterans and service members who are eligible for the Department of Veterans Affairs (VA) Specially Adapted Housing program, the VA has increased building and materials costs grant amounts. This program enables severely disabled veterans and service members to adapt their existing home or build or buy an adapted home. For more information please visit https://www.va.gov/housing-assistance/disability-housing-grants/how-to-apply . 

Starting in January 2026, all VA education beneficiaries, including "Survivors' and Dependents' Educational Assistance” students will be required to verify their enrollment each month to receive their benefit payments. This is important, the student MUST VERIFY ENROLLMENT for the before the VA will BEGIN processing your monthly benefit. Once verified, payment processing can take five to seven calendar days. You can learn more about the different enrollment verification methods at https://www.va.gov/education/verify-school-enrollment/#verify-your-enrollment-online or contact your School Certifying Official. You can find their contact information listed at https://www.va.gov/education/gi-bill-comparison-tool .

Local events: 

The time and place of these and local post meetings and other events are provided on each post’s Facebook site; come join us!

Every Tuesday, VFW Post 5331 in Cedar Hill host "Veterans Coffee Talk” at 9 am at 1 Lynn Lane in Cedar Hill. If you have questions or would like more information, please call EverTrue @ (314) 446-2539, Col. (retired) Ted Hodgson @ (314) 221-2096 or Mark Newton @ (636) 222-3521.

Every Wednesday, VFW Post 5896 is hosting an "all-you-can-eat” breakfast at 814 E Karsch Blvd, Farmington. Food service is 7 to 9:30 am and the cost is $8 and children under the age of 10 eat for free.

Every Saturday, VFW Post 1831 is hosting a Shooting Match at 1651 Veterans Dr., DeSoto. Doors open at 10 am, practice at 11 am and shooting starts at noon. Clubroom will open for drinks & appetizers. For more information call (636) 586-9271.

Every 3rd Sunday of each month, VFW Post 6516 in High Ridge will host "Meat Shoot” at 2220 Gravois Rd, High Ridge. Rain or shine, shooting starts at noon. Ages 12 and up are welcome and they provide the shells. Nothing smaller than a .678 choke tube and  no scopes, optics, bull barrels. For mor information call (636) 677-1772.

Legislative news:

We need your support for the "Major Richard Star Act” (H.R. 2102 and S. 1032) to address a decade’s long injustice. Today our nation’s combat disabled veterans are being denied full access to their benefits. Over 50,000 medically retired veterans—many of whom are Purple Heart recipients—do not their full retirement pay and disability compensation. We firmly believe that Department of War retired pay and the VA service-connected disability compensation are fundamentally different benefits, earned for different reasons, yet Congress has failed to acknowledge and act on this long-standing injustice. Please contact Senator Hawley at (202) 224-6154, Senator Schmitt, at (202) 224-5721, and Congressman Smith at (202) 225-4404 to support Missouri Veterans. 

The Missouri legislature is in session, and we ask you to support Missouri Veterans. We need to fully fund the Missouri Veterans Commission (MVC).  The MVC manages the seven Missouri Veterans homes and six cemeteries, Veterans Service Officer and other veterans’ programs.  Since 2020, MVC has yearly required crisis funding support. A solution is required or these critical programs may be lost.  We also need to update the Real and Personal Property Tax exemptions for 100% disabled veterans.  The currently tax exemption is only for veterans that are 100% disabled AND former Prisoners of War. We need to change the language from "and” to "or.” Finally, we need a Missouri law to fight unaccredited companies (Claim Sharks) that charge veterans for services in obtaining disability benefits.  Claim Sharks prey on veterans through aggressive and misleading advertising by offering to file VA claims, charging fees as high as 40% of retroactive and the first year of benefits for services that veterans service organizations such as VFW, DAV and American Legion do for free. 

Please contact your senator and representative to voice your support for Missouri Veterans.  You can find your representative at https://house.mo.gov/legislatorlookup and your senator at https://www.senate.mo.gov/LegisLookup . 

Now let us talk a bit about our history:

81 years ago this week, the Soviet Army entered the Auschwitz concentration camp in Poland, beginning the end of the most horrific episode in human history, the Holocaust. Between 1933 and 1945, under the control of the National Socialist German Workers’ Party (Nazis), Germany carried out the ideological and systematic prosecution and mass murder of citizens who were political dissidents, millions of European Jews, Gypsies, the intellectually disabled, and homosexuals. The black-uniformed "SS” (Schutzstaffe) carried out the program. Not the only camp, Auschwitz was a major element of the Nazis' "Final Solution to the Jewish Question”.  An example of industrial efficiency applied to inhumanity, Auschwitz had three sites. Two were concentration and an extermination camps built with several gas chambers, and the third a labor camp was a factory for the chemical conglomerate IG Farben.  The gassing of Soviet and Polish prisoners began at Auschwitz around August 1941 and between 1942 and late 1944, Jews from all over German-occupied Europe were delivered by freight trains to its gas chambers. Approximately 1.1 million people died in Auschwitz, including 960,000 Jews. Those not gassed, died of starvation, exhaustion, disease, individual executions, and beatings or during medical experiments. Soviet troops entering the camps did not end the program; the SS had already sent most of the camp's remaining population west on a death march to camps inside Germany and Austria.  For more information, I recommend visiting online or in person the United States Holocaust Memorial Museum. 

118 years ago this week, Boy Scouts began in England.  Lieutenant General Robert Stephenson Smyth Baden-Powell, 1st Baron Baden-Powell’s, and British national hero authored a military field manual in 1899 titled "Aids to Scouting”.  English boys loved the books. After learning of this, he wrote a nonmilitary field manual "Scouting for Boys” that also emphasized good deeds.   The Boy Scout Movement swiftly established itself and in 1909 the first Scout rally occurred in London.  For more information I recommend "Scouting Frontiers: Youth and the Scout Movements First Century” by Nelson R. Block. 

I offer this observation from Sir Ian Kershaw, British historian, author, and professor at the University of Sheffield, whose work has chiefly focused on the social history of 20th century Germany. He said, "the road to Auschwitz was built by hate, but paved with indifference.”

Bulletin Board:

The VA one-stop telephone number is 1-800-698-2411 and press "0” for immediate assistance. The VA one stop website is VA.gov Home | Veterans Affairs .

For more for information concerning VA "End of Life” benefits and services see www.va.gov/initiatives/end-of-life-benefits/

Veteran employment opportunities!  Please visit https://news.va.gov/138283/hiring-veterans-job .

The Missouri Veterans Commission (MVC) one-stop Benefits and Resource Portal is (573) 522-4061 or www.veteranbenefits.mo.gov .

To pre-certify for burial in a Missouri Veterans Cemetery, apply at https://my.mo.gov/gsp?id=vcp_preapplication .  For information on burial eligibility, visit https://mvc.dps.mo.gov/cemeteries . 

The Missouri Job Center offers no-cost employment assistance for veterans and spouses. Contact (417) 257-2630 or visit jobs.mo.gov/vets.

To order military service documents such as a DD 214/Separation Document or Official Military Personnel File (OMPF), contact the National Archives, National Personnel Records Center at https://www.archives.gov/veterans/military-service-records, or call (866) 272-6272.

For more information, follow us at https://www.facebook.com/groups/967395123712841 or visit movfw.org

 

"Here to Serve”