Laconia veterans find belonging at VFW

LACONIA — Inside the Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 1670 downtown, a group of veterans spanning several generations gather in the early afternoons to shoot pool, drink domestic beer and relate with one another. They hope younger veterans will become involved and carry the tradition forward.

Retired U.S. Army first sergeant and lifelong Laconia resident Daniel O’Connell said he’s been coming there to play pool most every day for the last 12 years. He spent 30 years serving in the Army and in the U.S. Army reserve, and said organizations like the VFW are dying for lack of new membership and engagement.

“It’s the only place I go where I share common experiences with the members,” he said. “We all understand each other.”

After returning to the U.S. following a long period of active duty, O’Connell was called up twice from the reserves to go to Iraq, where he worked within the Army Corps of Engineers. He retired in 2011 and when he returned to Laconia, his employer didn’t have his job still available for him, so he packed his bags, said goodbye to friends and family and returned to work overseas in Iraq and Afghanistan as a civilian for another two years.

Veterans Day, which celebrates those who served and returned home, means a lot to him.

“It means everything to me,” O’Connell said. “I’ve seen kids one-third my age going home 'horizontal' — in boxes.”

O’Connell said the number of deaths aside, tens of thousands returned from the wars of the last 30 years wounded, sometimes severely, and thousands more required major limb amputations.

“We paid our price, some more than others,” he said.

Veterans Day is sometimes misconstrued as a memorial to those who died serving the country — that’s the purpose and meaning of Memorial Day, which falls on the last Monday of May each year. Veterans Day honors living veterans.

“We remember Memorial Day because every single person in here has seen kids die,” he said. “We remember because they can’t.”

But life isn’t always easy for veterans who return home from war. O’Connell said he faced challenges, not necessarily with obtaining earned benefits and services, such as medical care, but specifically in finding purpose and opportunity after coming home. 

“It was horrible for me,” he said. 

Looking back on the pathway he’d taken, he realizes now things worked out for the best. In 2011, when he returned home and his job was gone, he received a call from the area engineer, a civilian who oversaw Army Corps of Engineers projects abroad. He offered O’Connell a federal job doing the same sort of work he’d done as an active duty soldier. That offer was for one year, then extended for another.

“He said, ‘We need you, be on a plane tomorrow,’” O’Connell said. 

Working as a civilian, O’Connell traveled throughout the Middle East with stops in Dubai and Kuwait among other countries in the region.

Following his continued service overseas, O’Connell returned to Laconia, working in the construction field and primarily on Army Corps of Engineers projects on the domestic front. O’Connell, now 67, finally retired at 65. He said the best thing civilians can do to ease veterans' transitions out of the service is to welcome them back with open arms.

“Have an atmosphere where they’re supported to come back for their jobs,” he said. “The young kids, they have to survive just like the rest of us.”

Having spent much of his career in active war zones, O’Connell said those experiences can change a person in a way that isn’t easy to relate to without that shared exposure.

“The whole people shooting at you thing,” he said. “You get used to it.”

He feels lucky, he said, because he hasn’t had the same problems others describe of their experiences navigating benefits programs including through the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs.

“I’ve had a very good experience with the VA medical system,” he said. 

The larger problem he hopes to address is lack of engagement with veterans organizations like the VFW, where veterans can socialize with others who’ve gone through some of the same situations and came up through common organizational cultures. 

“Veterans clubs in the country are struggling mightily,” he said, noting hundreds have closed down for good in recent years.

At one point, 85% of male residents in Laconia had served in World War II, he said. Many of them have aged out of participation with veterans clubs, and now the bulk of members are veterans who served during the Vietnam War era. He said veterans clubs need younger veterans from the Gulf, Iraq and Afghanistan wars to take the mantle and run with it, but understands a lot of them are working and raising families.

“We need those guys to show up here, come check us out at least,” he said. “We’ve done our share, we need them to come take over.”

Also at the VFW shooting pool on Thursday afternoon was U.S. Army veteran Paul Packenham Sr., who served two tours in Iraq. He said the government took care of his cohort well after returning from war, but earlier generations of soldiers, particularly following the war in Vietnam, were treated poorly in many cases. 

“Vietnam was very negative, those guys didn’t get the treatment that they deserved,” he said. 

He spent 22 of a period of 37 years serving between the Army and the National Guard as an infantryman and later in field artillery. 

“In my era, I think we were treated very, very well,” he said. 

Packenham noted he received a 90% disability rating with the VA medical services and pointed to his acquisition of a VA home loan, and said the government did plenty for him personally.

“I have no regrets,” he said. “I don’t feel entitled to anything more than I’m currently getting.”

Packenham said Veterans Day, for him, is a joyous occasion whereas Memorial Day strikes a somber tone. 

“Memorial Day is to remember those that are fallen,” he said. 

But Packenham noted that, while government benefits for returning soldiers are good, civilians don’t always understand them and are at times unable to relate to them. Noting every branch has different challenges facing their soldiers and sailors, they all share a common lifestyle and sacrifices, such as packing up and leaving everything behind.

“A ton of sacrifice, even in peacetime,” he said. “That, people will never understand. But we all made the conscious decision to walk into that recruiting office.”

Packenham has a unique experience among military veterans. In 2015, he considered retiring, but his son enlisted and they had an opportunity to serve within the same unit, which they did. 

“The memories me and my son have, I wouldn’t trade it for the world.”

He said he’s proud of the youngest generations of soldiers, who he called “just as tough” as the older generations. 

“Kids are stepping up and they’re as hard as their grandfathers,” Packenham said.

A Veterans Day service will be held at 11 a.m. Monday morning in downtown Laconia at Veterans Square, hosted by the VFW. The public is invited to their post on Court Street to attend a luncheon following the ceremony. O’Connell said he’ll be there as he is every year. And residents at Meredith Bay Village condo association, in Meredith, have raised funds to install a flagpole there. Executive Councilor Joe Kenney will attend the 1 p.m. ceremony on Monday, and give them an American flag.