COUNTERING MILITARY RECRUITMENT
Articles: Military Service: People of Color
Recruiter: Legion Refused to Rent to Him
Associated Press
January 30, 2006
FORT ATKINSON, Wis. — A Navy recruiter said he was told he could not rent an American Legion hall for his retirement party because of his ethnicity.
The building manager told Petty Officer Dale Lawver the hall wasn’t available to “Mexicans” and he didn’t rent to “you people,” said Lawver, a Mexican-American and 19-year Navy veteran.
Lawver said the comments “felt like someone had kicked me right in the stomach.” “Especially with me standing there in uniform, that made it even worse,” he said Friday. “What am I fighting for here? What have I been doing for the last 20 years to be treated like this? This is a place that is supposed to be there for me. I just got a packet in the mail telling me how to join the American Legion.” State American Legion officials are denouncing the treatment, and the Fort Atkinson post fired the building manager, said the post’s lawyer, Vicki Zick.
“I take it as a personal insult that a fellow veteran was treated in any possibly disrespectful way, a man who is honorably serving our country and was hoping to celebrate a milestone in his career,” State Commander Ted Duckworth said.
“I am quite certain there are any number of American Legion posts throughout the state who would welcome Petty Officer Lawver with open arms as a guest or a member.” Lawver, a Fort Atkinson resident and a recruiter in Janesville for the past three years, went to the Fort Atkinson post Jan. 2 to see whether he wanted to rent the building for his retirement party this summer.
Lawver said he was told the last time the post rented the hall to Mexicans, they caused problems.
Zick said Legion officials are taking his complaint seriously, though the post could reinstate the manager if the allegations are determined to be untrue.
Lawver served on a ship during the Gulf War and helped land Marines in Pakistan as the United States prepared to invade Afghanistan after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks.
His attorney, Narciso Aleman, said, “We want for (the building manager) to say he was wrong, that he should not have done that to a person who has given 20 years of his life in service to his country.”
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