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mission statement, us navy, purposes, us navy activities, navy relief, navy assistance
"Not radically different. Just radically better."
The Mission
of the Association, which is an activity-oriented description of its goals, and the goals of its State Chapters, as currently approved by its voting membership, includes:
The support, as the Association's primary
and encompassing mission, of educational communication for policies and public support enhancing
the cause of the United States of America, and of Liberty, in the world, the cause of naval power, a strong national defense
vulnerable to none, the Navy mission as a keystone of that defense, and the remembrance of the service of the American
Veteran;
The support of the needs of
the U.S. Navy;
The provision of assistance to disabled and needy war veterans and members of the U.S. Armed Forces
from all service branches and to their dependents and to the widows and orphans of deceased veterans*;
The provision of entertainment, care and assistance to hospitalized veterans or members of the U.S. Armed Forces from
all service branches*;
The provision of programs to perpetuate the memory of deceased veterans
and members of the U.S. Armed Forces from all service branches, and to comfort their survivors*;
The sponsorship of, or participation in, activities of a patriotic nature;
The support of legislative action
to provide to our service personnel, veterans, and their dependents, widows and orphans, the remuneration and benefits they
truly deserve;
The provision of social and recreational activities for Association members;
and
The
provision of nonpartisan education, news and analysis pertaining to the value of these goals, and other issues of interest
to veterans, service members and the patriotic public.
The Executive Board of the Association,
by unanimous public resolution January 21, 2005 has added the following quotation to the current Mission Statement as a fundamental
part of its First Article:
"From the day of our founding, we have proclaimed
that every man and woman on this earth has rights, and dignity, and matchless value, because they bear the image of the maker
of heaven and earth. Across the generations we have proclaimed the imperative of self-government, because no one is fit to
be a master, and no one deserves to be a slave. Advancing these ideals is the mission that created our nation. It is the honorable
achievement of our fathers. Now it is the urgent requirement of our nation's security, and the calling of our time."
- President George W. Bush
Inaugural Address
January 20, 2005
The United States Navy Veterans
Association, while officially supporting the mission of the United States Navy since 1927, is not an official part of
any United States Government agency.
It is a U.S. Government qualified
tax-exempt, tax-deductible veterans' organization.
Rob Hoelson of Houston wrote to the Association in 2003,
and asked
"What is the difference, in
simple English, between the U.S. Navy Veterans Association and the VFW, the Association of the United States Army (AUSA),
the Air Force Association and the U.S. Navy League?"
Jack Nimitz, Chairman of the National Executive Board
of the United States Navy Veterans Association (USNVA), chose to answer the question personally:
"It's a good question.
First, let's clear up a commonly held
misperception. All the named groups are private organizations. None of them are official arms of the United States Government,
or any agency of the United States Government, and none of them claim to be. Neither the Department of the Navy nor any component
of the Department of Defense officially approves or endorses the activities of any private person or organization.
Second, as to similarities among the named
groups: All are recognized tax-exempt organizations by the IRS. All have an overreaching educational purpose in their missions,
and all purport, in one way or another to represent or support the interests of active-duty U.S. Armed forces
members, retirees and/or veterans. Some of these other organizations talk about, in their published statements on their
educational mission, "support for the profession of arms." Well, we have a little bit more pizazz: We talk about our
support of, and respect for, American arms, period, as a function of American patriotism.
Some other differences are obvious.
Unlike the Navy League, for example, the United States Navy Veterans Association is 'Still Arriving.'
Another major difference relates to the
fact that many high echelon level individuals serving actively in both the Department of the Navy and the Department
of Defense (as well as numerous individuals with friends in low places), feel as this Association does, and have
felt as this Association has felt, about certain national security issues, but are forbidden by protocol from openly saying
so, or expressing those viewpoints as forthrightly as this Association does. Some of these people, admirals, generals, and
on down, have made statements while in uniform about national policy, statements which oftentimes reflected the viewpoints
of the policymakers above them but, because they spoke 'out of court,' those same policymkers told them to keep their mouths
shut. Well, even those very same policymakers need a niche to express their real viewpoints, other than in a carefully worded
press release issued twice a year. It is not right that all these patriots, and their viewpoints, are not
represented by any military or veterans' association. If the Navy League, the VFW or the AUSA in their public pronouncements
purport to represent the viewpoints of these Americans, and none of those groups have ever publicly made the claim to do so,
then, in my opinion, they have not done so either aggressively or forthrightly. One, only one, of the purposes of this
Association is to give these people, our DoD people, an open outlet for their views, without the penalty that might come from
personal attribution. We are, however, a membership organization, and the vote as to the Association's official positions
comes equally from our Seaman Apprentice members and our Admirals, and everyone in between.
Years ago, at the U.S. Naval Station in Rota, Spain,
a Navy wife told me directly, "Anybody here criticizing the Franco regime, our hosts, will be given a dishonorable discharge
right away." I found that statement, commonly believed to be true by servicepersons in Spain at the time, and regardless of
its accuracy or lack thereof, to be offensive. Times have changed since then. And I hope they will remain changed.
Other differences from the named
organizations are more subtle. I'm not sure how simple my English is, but I'll try to describe the latter as simply
as possible, speaking for myself:
Unlike other groups, USNVA does not understand the dichotomy
between 'military organizations' and 'veterans' organizations' in the U.S., and that makes us almost unique. We do not understand
why a veterans' based organization cannot equally be in favor of promoting American national security and, at the same time,
but in respect of the first purpose, also promote the cause of the needy veteran. In simple English, to promote the cause
of the veteran without at the same time actually doing something for the veteran appears to us to be half a program, not a
whole one. That distinction between those two purposes obviously gives a lot of difficulty to some of the above named
organizations. They shy away from addressing, verbally and specifically, both issues at the same time. We see no reason for
that, why 'military organizations' and 'veterans' organizations' need a dichotomy in the first place, since most veterans
put the cause of the United States before their own personal needs or wants. Our words, specifically as to both national security
and veterans' issues, can be found side by side on this Site at any time. And those words, and our opinions, are more specific
on both subjects, and specifically correlate between those subjects, more than anything you will find from any of those other
named groups. We are, above all, Americans. It is only, thereafter, that we are Navy, and that we are Veterans.
USNVA, AUSA, AFA and the Navy League also have specific service branch affinities. VFW does
not. But neither our service branch affinity, nor our purposes, keep us back, nor do we want it to keep USNVA
back, from a message which appeals to ALL American patriots.
I think USNVA maintains an independence
of thought-process, an independence in its policy recommendations and constructive criticism on national security
and veterans' issues, from any "party line" put out by any given Administration in Washington, and that USNVA and its predecessor
organizations have done so since 1927. There are some in the military, naval and veteran communities in the United States
who have opined that that is a major distinction between us and AUSA, AFA and the Navy League. Recently, during the second
Bush Administration, for example, the Navy League took the legislative position that it 'supports the DD(X) naval program,'
a development and acquisition program for a new battleship. USNVA went further, and supported the original request made by our Admiralty for 'at least 24 of these ships to be acquired
by 2013, even though that numerical request was scaled down by the Bush Administration.
I think that, although both we and the
VFW have excellent outreach programs for many veterans, and touching backward to the point I raised in the preceding paragraph,
but in reverse, and in distinction to many veterans' groups, USNVA does not follow a "knee-jerk" approach to lobbying support
for each and every welfare proposal in Congress to expand dollar payments to veterans. We examine each of these public policy
proposals on its merits, and compare and contrast each such proposal with the state of the deficit at the time (an ever expanding
national deficit weakens the long term national security of the United States) and the prioritized need, which we know each
and every veteran and patriot feels in his or her heart, to make sure our active Armed Forces are strong enough, with both
money and manpower, to protect us from an ever growing number of new and different threats in the 21st Century.
This Association celebrates America's diversity as
a concomitant to our freedoms. We view that diversity itself, as well as our ability to manage it without
violent conflict, as signs of America's strength, and not of our weakness. Some say the VFW's position on this
subject may be different. The following is a direct quotation from the VFW PAC's website as to what the VFW's Americanism
Program stands for, in this regard:
“[Resolved:
That the VFW] do everything within its power
to eliminate the hyphen in organizations composed of residents or citizens of the United
States." (That is, that there should be no
Irish-Americans, German-Americans, Italian-Americans, etc., only Americans.)….
That
this organization... positively discourage as an act of disloyalty the publication of our newspapers in the language of any
other country or race.
That we use our utmost efforts
through legislation and other means to insist that the alien population of this country prepare to become citizens or prepare
to leave the country until they change their minds, and furthermore that all aliens who for cause have been refused citizenship
be deported at once….”
The United States Navy Veterans Association stands for Americanism
expressed in any language spoken and understood by ethnic Americans as they journey on the path of integration toward E Pluribus
Unum: "Nosotros, la Gente de los Estados Unidos, Que Nada Nos Detenga!"
But that is not to say, that we should not have one and only one
nationally accepted language here, English, the mother language of the people who founded this country, so that we all can
understand each other:
E Pluribus Unum.
And the Star Spangled Banner, our National Anthem, with lyrics written by
Francis Scott Key, should be sung in English.
And illegal immigrants here should be prepared to accept, if they wish to stay
here, at a minimum, America and its values, and to denounce publicly the counter values of any country they came from,
or to be deported. In that, we are totally in agreement with the VFW statements to that effect.
Our Association, I should point out, has the
utmost respect for the VFW. Individual VFW posts, collectively, by reason of their contributions to the Association, are listed
as Navy Eagle sponsors on our
And, when and where we agree with VFW positions
on national security, as we often do, we will say so.
Last, but not least, you will read things on our newsites
which have been classified but which have been leaked to us by official sources, and we gladly bring you those news stories,
provided we consider the leak to be "official," and, second, that the national security of the United States is not dangerously
harmed by such public reporting. We are dubious that type of reporting occurs on any newsite sponsored by any of
the other groups mentioned in Rob's question, because of lack of access.
And, by the way, there is also an important
distinction between the United States Navy Veterans Association and a veterans' association not mentioned in Rob's question,
the Vietnam Veterans of America. Here is the pertinent purposive statement from their published Mission Statement:
-
To conduct and publish research, on a non-partisan basis, pertaining to the relationship between
Vietnam-era veterans and the American society, the Vietnam War experience, the role of the United States in securing peaceful
co-existence for the world community, and other matters which affect the social, economic, educational, or physical welfare
of the Vietnam-era veteran or others. [Emphasis added.]
We note that this organization is not straightforward
enough to say that they promote 'peaceful co-existence' (a term, if they are referring to Soviet Communism, we believe,
was made obsolete by the foreign policy of the Reagan Administration), only that they 'study' it.
Here is the contrasting pertinent purposive
statement from our Mission Statement:
-
The support, as the Association's primary and encompassing mission, of
educational communication for policies and public support enhancing the cause of the United States of America, and
of Liberty, in the world, the cause of naval power, a strong national defense vulnerable to none, the Navy mission as
a keystone of that defense, and the remembrance of the service of the American Veteran.
Note that when USNVA promotes a policy idea,
it says it's promoting it, not that it's merely 'studying' it.
The United States Navy Veterans Association
opposes 'peaceful coexistence' with foreign terror directed at the United States, and consistently opposed 'peaceful coexistence'
with Soviet imperialism. Jane Fonda may have been in favor of peaceful co-existence with the Viet Cong, but we were not. She
may be in favor of peaceful coexistence today with armed Islamist terrorists, but we are not.
Some of these policies and purposes
may seem to refect subtle and even overlapping, principles of distinction, but USNVA is rock, hard solid as
to all of them.
I tried to keep this as simple as possible,
but not simpler."
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ELECTIONEERING ACTIVITY vs. LOBBYING vs. NON-PARTISAN
ANALYSIS
Although we discuss this subject umpteen different times, using different
words, on both our Homeport and Contributions Pages, the Association needs to make a certain separate definitive distinction in this segment because of the extended
substantive educational and public informational comments made both on this Website and in other official communications of
the Association.
(1) The Association does not seek, nor has it ever sought, in any communication,
to influence the outcome of a U.S. election.
(2) The Association openly and proudly lobbies for both executive and
legislative policies it believes are in the national security interests of the United States and in consonance with one or
more purposes of the Association's Mission Statement and its IRS approved Form 1024 Purposes. That lobbying, which includes
both lobbying with policymakers and their staffs as well as grass-roots lobbying with the public (sometimes referred
to as issue advocacy), involves, as all good lobbying does, analyses of why the policy addressed is good or bad.
It also may include the public chastisement, coupled with analysis of proposed or actual policy, of a political figure advocating
a policy, in an attempt to get that figure to change his or her mind as to that policy issue. Both legislative and executive
policies begin, we should add, with the belief systems of the policymakers. Some of these beliefs are unalterable; some of
those of the average veteran are also. But even many beliefs, ours, the policymakers', everybody's, are subject to change.
And attempting to change them is a legitimate part of that dirty word "lobbying." And lobbying, in that sense, can and
does occur at any time, and not simply with some time specific reference as to when a particular piece of legislation is scheduled
to come up for a vote. The time for American veterans to have started lobbying policymakers and the American public as
to the dangers of Soviet imperialism, e.g., came long before the McCarran Act came up for a vote in 1952.
None of our lobbying, grass roots lobbying or issue advocacy activities should
be confused with an attempt to influence the outcome of an election in the sense that we are trying to get any voter to vote
for or against anybody.
The Association places no explicit or implicit message in any of its public policy
positions which favor or oppose any candidate for U.S. public office, and a reasonable person would in fact be hard put to
find any official Association statement about public policy, considered in context, which reasonably could be said
to do so, even impliedly.
The Association never uses paid lobbyists.
(3) Third, the Association reports the news, with its own non-partisan
analysis and opinion, to include what American political figures are saying, doing or proposing with respect to national security
and veterans' issues. That analysis is non-partisan in the sense that the Association does not advocate or oppose
a policy or policy philosophy because it is espoused or opposed by either a particular political party or candidate, or for
the purpose of attempting to influence the outcome of any U.S. election. If any recipient of any of these communications interprets
any one of them as implying they should vote for or against any candidate for public office, that person is misinterpreting
that communication.
While it is always unfortunate that legitimate lobbying, grass roots
lobbying, and issue advocacy activities (legitimate in the sense that they are permissible by law) can be construed by
those with overactive, and sometimes somewhat mean minds, as slipping into something else, there is nevertheless, to
any judicious mind, a bright line between attempting to influence the outcome of an election on the one hand, and
the activities referred to in categories (2) and (3) on the other. That bright line, which narrowly construes the definition
of activities falling into category (1), is necessary to avoid the chilling of free speech with regard to categories (2) and
(3).
The United States Navy Veterans Association does not cross that line.
NAVA AND USNVA
PRESIDENTS, CHAIRMEN,
GENERAL
AND ASSISTANT SECRETARIES
Presidents
1950 Darrell A. Warren, USN (ret.)
1961 Frederick P. Michaels, USN (ret.)
1962 Alfred Colhavic, USN(ret.)
1967 Michael R. Rice, USN (ret.)
1971 Timothy B. Taylor, USN (ret.)
1976 Dennis Cohen, USN (ret.)
1987 David Martin, USN (ret.)
1997 John Darnell, USN (ret.)
2001 Ronald Brigham, USN (ret.)
Chairmen
1950 Barry Preston
1968 Mark Burke
1989 Steven
Cranes
1998 Jack Nimitz
General Secretaries
1950 Tom Jackson
1974 Jay Owens
1980 Michael Grissom
1987 Michael Kirby
1998 Brian Reagan
Assistant
General Secretaries
1987 Jayne Gaetano
1988 Kathy Witherspoon
2000 Linda West
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This website was produced and is maintained, exclusively, in the United States of America.
The membership of the United States Navy Veterans Association is composed of, exclusively, American citizens and residents.
The Association does not make grants or gifts to any foreign entity.
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Site Index and Guide to the Site ************************* 
(1) Pages About the Association: ***************************************************************** ***************** Mission Statement: Who We Are and What We Do ************************ ***************** Homeport: A History of the United States Navy Veterans Association *************** *********** Veterans Outreach Programs **************************************** ****************** Current Advocacy and Achievements: Legislation and U.S. Government Policy ****** ************* Convention, Membership and Contributions Information/Do Not Call List **************** ******* Navy Eagle Circle ************** ************************* Navy Community Foundation Fund Awards, Endorsements and Compliments ************************************************ State and Overseas Chapters/Contribution Processing Centers ******************************* Membership Application *************************************************************** Governmental Disclosures ************************************************ * Annual Report 
(2) Pages About the U.S. Navy: ***************************************************************** **************** History of the United States Navy *************** ************************* News of the Navy U.S. Navy Enlisted Personnel and Officers' Insignia ***************************************** A Brief History of the United States Naval Academy ***************** United States Navy Seabees United States Navy Seals ********************* *********************** Virtual Navy Wall 
