Dan Wiley, National Commander of the American Legion for 20252026, visited the Green-Bryant American Legion Post No. 39 in Durant last week to talk to members about their concerns.
Wiley is from Leavenworth, Kansas, and served 30 years as a district court judge there.
He said that when he became national commander, he created cards to hand out that show his six priorities as national commander.
He said the first priority is to educate people with regard to reducing the stigma of mental health and that there has been a suicide epidemic.
“The second priority is better together, which is really a family unity theme,” Wiley said. “In the American Legion, we have things we call posts which is the Legion and then we have an auxiliary organization which includes for the most part female descendants and spouses.
“They are called units. We have something call the Sons of the American Legion which I think is pretty obvious, sons of veterans and we call them Squadrons and then we have the American Legion Riders and we call them chapters and they are made up of components of each of the other three, the Legion, the Auxiliary and Sons. You have to be one of those to be a member of the American Legion Riders which is a motorcycle association.”
Wiley said the riders conduct flag ceremonies and funeral escorts and that when all of those American Legion units come together and work together as a family, the organization is better.
According to Wiley, American Legion has a big push this year to train veterans service officers at the national level to get them accredited.
“We train them, and they go back to the states and we have VSOs in every state and as part of that, a lot people don’t know that the American Legion in calendar year 2025, returned $29.5 billion to veterans through claims of disability with the V.A.,” Wiley said. So, veterans received monies they were entitled to by reason of service-connected disabilities and the American Legion which is by far the largest veterans organization helped veterans obtain $29.5 billion.
“When you think of that number, it’s just astronomical and that’s money going back to people who often times experience financial instability because they are disabled and maybe for some of them, working or working in a job that they want to do is more difficult for them, so a lot of them have financial instability. Well, financial instability is one of many factors that go into the equation of veterans suicide. So, returning this money back to them and helping them with their financial instability is also helping with one of the factors to reduce veteran suicide.”
According to Wiley, American Legion has approximately 1.5 million members nationwide. There are more than 600,000 members of the Auxiliary and more than 400,000 in the Sons of the Legion with a total of about 2.5 million members.
Wiley travels 348 days out of the year, visiting posts, veterans homes, V.A. hospitals and other veteran-related places.
“I tell people I’m never home, and I’m never alone and in a lot of ways, you’re the biggest cheerleader for the organization,” Wiley said. “You’re the face of the organization. We travel around and do things like we are doing today.”
Wiley’s travels are an opportunity for him to talk to post members.
“When a national commander comes in, there’s really probably two purposes,” Wiley said. “One is, a post, is generally a large deal for them to have a national commander come in because you can understand there’s only one of us. We will hit all 50 states.
“I’m in Oklahoma three days and you understand if I’m in Oklahoma three days, I’m not seeing a large portion of the state. These days will be 12-and 14-hour days, but we’ll hit a handful of posts and get to see them. So, my point being is, when a post has a national commander come in, a lot of times, it’s been the only time they’ve ever had a national commander ever come in and a lot of times, it’s been 10 and 20 years since they’ve had one.
“So, it’s a morale boost for them. It’s an opportunity for me to share with them ideas that the other posts are doing or things we’re doing at the national level, but it’s also an opportunity to talk to our veterans and take that information back to our organization and help us get our legislative priorities in Washington D.C. because we learn the things that we’re doing and the need for things we’re not doing that they need or things that Congress can do to help them.”
According to Wiley, there are 12,000 American Legion posts nationwide.
“We have more posts in this country than there are Walmarts,” Wiley said. “There’s about 5,500 Walmarts in the country and so we’re more prevalent in a lot of communities than Walmarts are. I get it, Walmart’s a big conglomerate, a multi-billiondollar industry, but we’re a lot more prevalent in a lot of small communities like Durant and in other towns where often times, we’re the backbone of the communities serving veterans and a lot of times, serving the community as a whole.”
Wiley said the American Legion state leadership determines which posts he visits.
“What they can see as far as what is going to be the best use of my time, where they want to take me and they may take me to a post that’s struggling and help with the morale boost and maybe take me to a post that’s been rejuvenated to kind of reward them for the work they’ve done,” Wiley said.
Durant Green-Bryant Post 39 Commander Hayden Woods said Wiley’s visit was an extremely big deal.
“It has been over 30 years since a national commander has come through here,” Woods said. “What it actually means for our post, because we are considered a small post, we have less than 70 members, to have the national commander come here shows how much he cares about all the veterans in this organization. That he’s willing to come to a small post like this, break bread with us and listen to what we have to say about our organization and what needs to be happening with Congress in the future.”
He said Wylie has done an excellent job as national commander.
“He has gone and visited Hawaii for Pearl Harbor Day,” Woods said. “He has been to France for June 6 for D-Day and again, this is part of his trip here. Commander Wylie has been on the road for over 342 days. He’s only spent 28 days this year at his house. So, it’s very important that we support him while he is supporting us.”
The Durant chapter that was formed in 1919 is about to start a new membership drive, according to Woods. The chapter was inactive for about eight years but is now growing and is planning to have an open house.
“We will be continuing to being the one campaign to bring awareness to veterans suicide,” Woods said. “We are also looking to expand more into the homeless veterans population here.
“We will become a resource center for all of the veterans in Bryan County, it’s not just the city folks. We are actually going to try to become a veterans resource center for the entire county.”
Woods said the chapter gets its name from local World War I veterans.
“In fact, the two members that we are named after are both alumni of Southeastern Oklahoma University,” Woods said. “They are both Choctaw, so we have a lot of history and tradition in here and we’re going to continue to build on that.”
