9 Facts About American Legion

1. At the state level, The American Legion is organized into "departments", which run annual civic training events for high school juniors called Boys State.

2. The American Legion took a McCarthyist stance on film, threatening to boycott any theater that screened director Edward Dmytryk's Salt to the Devil (1949) because of Dmytryk's involvement with the blacklist.

3. The American Legion helped veterans fill out the paperwork and obtain the benefits.

4. The American Legion mobilized its members across the country and secured passage in June 1944.

5. The American Legion wrote the original draft of the Veterans Readjustment Act, which became known as the GI Bill.

6. In 1942, the American Legion adopted the practice of the VFW to become a perpetual organization, rather than die off as its membership aged as that of the Grand Army of the Republic was rapidly doing.

7. The American Legion is fighting every element that threatens our democratic government—Soviets, anarchists, IWW, revolutionary socialists and every other red.

8. The American Legion served a strong social function, building and buying "clubhouses" in communities across America at which its members could gather, reflect, network, and socialize.

9. In 1917, when war was declared the American Legion had 23,000 members skilled in 77 professions pledged to fight.