By Navy League National President David J. Reilly
This is blog post appears in the January issue of Seapower magazine, the official magazine of the Navy League of the United States.
At the 2021 National Convention, our board of directors made the pivotal decision to welcome active duty service members into Navy League of the United States membership. While this organization has come close to this change many times since active-duty membership ended around the time of World War II, this marks the first time this change has been enacted.
Providing active-duty service members an opportunity to join our volunteer ranks not only aligns the Navy League with other similar military service organizations, but provides us with an important growth opportunity. While service members from all ages and ranks are welcome to join us, perhaps our most impactful role could be for members from the armed services as they come close to their transition out of service.
This transition is a challenging one for many service members that have spent years in uniform. Our service members are highly skilled but translating those skills can seem challenging. For people that have spent a great deal of time on the move from duty station to duty station, settling down in one spot can be both a welcome relief but also a difficult decision to make.
These people, more than anything, need a community and a mission — a community that understands them, their service and knows their value, and a mission that continues to give them a sense of fulfillment after they are out of uniform.
Our councils have these strong community ties and provide people with a direct way to continue to be tied to their service. And we have the mission to continue their drive to serve once they are done transitioning.
This will no doubt be a unique inflection point for our organization, where our mission of education, advocacy and support evolves. You, our membership, are our most powerful tool in this new endeavor. I hope you welcome this new challenge as an opportunity to reinvigorate our organization.