10/04/2026
Legion Family,
This report really hit home for me. As District 21 Commander and Aide-de-Camp to our Detachment Commander, I see how important it is to support our squadrons, mentor our members, and keep telling the story of the Sons of the American Legion. We have a lot to be proud of, and it is up to all of us to keep moving SAL forward.
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Why Would I Leave? — SAL Strong: Membership, Retention, and Pride in the Sons of the American Legion
Sons of the American Legion 2026 Fall NEC
At this time, I call on Commander’s Advisory Committee Chairman and Past National Commander of the Sons of the American Legion, Don J.R. Hall, Jr.
“To all you guys who have been saying good morning — we started at one o’clock. Good afternoon! How many times do you say good morning to people?
Folks, there’s an elephant in the room that nobody’s talking about out loud out here, but everybody’s talking about it in every corner of Indianapolis, and that’s the membership eligibility that came across and passed after we left Kentucky.
Why should this affect the Sons of the American Legion? Probably, there are a lot of questions about how it’s going to affect us and everything else.
I’ve been asked to come before you today to give the plan that we have.
We have no plan.
We don’t need a plan, folks. What we need to do is what we should always be doing. That’s blowing the horn of an organization that’s 96 years old, that is the number one veterans-based organization supporter in the world, and that’s the Sons of the American Legion.
Why aren’t we always doing that? Why would you want to leave?
Look at the accomplishment sheets. Don’t walk out of this room and leave that on your desk. There’s a reason we’ve been asking everybody to put it out.
The members who go to your post and maybe go to a crab feast, maybe to some kind of feed you have, whatever you do, but just join and pay their membership every year — they need to understand where their money’s going. This tells them.
Why does just ten dollars matter? What does that matter? Because ten dollars times 400,000 members is a hell of a lot of money. And that money’s making a difference in veterans’ lives. That money’s making a difference in your community. That money’s helping children.
So again, I ask you: Why would we worry about you leaving?
Do you want to go and join because your wife’s getting on your nerves about it? Do so. Who cares? But why would you leave?
That’s why the campaign that you heard Chairman Miller talk about is, “Why Would I Leave?” We had, “Why Would I Be a Member?” But now: Why would you leave?
Why would you leave an organization that supports veterans the way we do?
You’ve got to be proud of the work you do. You’re not doing that anywhere else. We are number one. We are SAL Strong. We’re the Sons of the American Legion, the best damn supportive veterans organization there is.
Don’t go nowhere, but make sure everybody knows they need to join. They need to keep the retention up. This is the best retention tool we can use. Use it.
We need Millennium articles. We need everything. We should be snipping that and putting it up everywhere we can — all over Facebook, every magazine, everywhere else we can get it, right?
We need everybody to know.
If we all blow our horn, it’s one thing individually. We blow our horns together, we’re a band. Let’s be the loudest band, the proudest band, and the best band out there to say why the Sons of the American Legion are SAL Strong and always will be.
Don’t worry about that. Don’t worry about that eligibility thing, because you know what? That does a lot of good things too.
How many people know a Gold Star father? They could never be a part of the American Legion. And that was one of the biggest reasons those resolutions ever started coming out — Gold Star families.
So there’s a purpose for that resolution. I’m not trashing that, and neither should you, because it’s helping people who couldn’t be a part of the American Legion Family be a part of the American Legion Family. It’s opening up doors for people, and great for them.
And I don’t want to market against them, and neither should you.
We should have been marketing for years: the Sons of the American Legion.
We’re the best. You know it.
Make sure everybody else knows it.
Thank you all.”
For God & Country,
Tony Orona, Jr.,
Aide-de-Camp to the Detachment Commander
Commander, District 21
Sons of the American Legion
Detachment of California
