[Congressional Record Volume 166, Number 43 (Wednesday, March 4, 2020)]
[Extensions of Remarks]
[Pages E255-E256]
From the Congressional Record Online through the Government Publishing Office [www.gpo.gov]




  CELEBRATING THE CENTENNIAL OF THE AMERICAN LEGION POST 181 IN BREA, 
                               CALIFORNIA

                                 ______
                                 

                     HON. GILBERT RAY CISNEROS, JR.

                             of california

                    in the house of representatives

                        Wednesday, March 4, 2020

  Mr. CISNEROS. Madam Speaker, I rise today to celebrate the centennial 
of one of the finest institutions in the 39th Congressional District. 
On Monday night, January 5, 1920, a cold wind blew out of the San 
Gabriel Mountains, through the Brea-Olinda Oil Field, the goat and 
sheep pastures, and into orange groves that surrounded the tiny hamlet 
of Brea. With little more than a thousand residents, Brea could hardly 
host a U.S. Post Office, but it held a small group of proud, determined 
men. They were American veterans of the Great War, and only 10 months 
after the founding of the national parent organization, with the ink 
still wet on national charter, they founded American Legion Post 181 in 
Brea, California.
   The founders of Brea Post 181 were men like Ted Craig who returned 
home to Brea in 1919 and helped secure the charter and property for the 
new Post only a few months after returning from ``Over There.'' Many 
had seen things, carried traumas off the battlefield and certainly bore 
emotional and physical scars of the first fully industrialized 
conflict. But their commitment to the Legion gave them a new mission, a 
common purpose and a way to channel the evils of war into a peace and 
prosperity that was good. The first line of the Legion's mission 
statement pledges every member to re-dedicate themselves to ``uphold 
and defend the Constitution of the United States.'' But it requires 
more. Built into the very fiber of the Legion's national mission is a 
commitment to programs that build better communities and a better 
country in five areas: From honoring America's war dead and supporting 
the rehabilitation of our nations wounded warriors, to supporting a 
strong national defense, the patriotic education of younger generations 
and, most broadly, to build support for American ideals and values. And 
Brea Post 181 has been an exemplary participant in all five areas from 
its beginning with a city-wide Armistice Day Celebration on November 
11, 1920, just ten months and five days after the Post's founding. 
Carnivals, dances, bingo nights and parades have been an important part 
of the Post's connection to the community. But the Post's work has also 
included scholarship funding, the Boy's Nation Program, voter 
registration, and a long-standing collaboration with the city's 
patriotic celebrations, especially the annual 4th of July Country Fair. 
And our Brea Legion Post has always been there in times of crisis. In 
1933, Brea Legionnaires reacted heroically to the major earthquake that 
so heavily impacted Long Beach. The Post hosted displaced families, 
took care of the injured victims, and even stepped in to direct and 
coordinate recovery

[[Page E256]]

resources. World War II may have been 181's finest hour. With the 
founding generation being too old for direct military service, men like 
Eugene Streed--a proud Marine who had fought Bolshevism in Vladvostock 
in 1918-1919--led war drives, supervised civil defense activities and 
put on remembrances and memorials. In Streed's case, this included 
handcrafting more than 1000 white crosses to identify veterans' graves. 
He was also the co-founder of Brea's Memory Garden, where American 
flags with the names of Brea's lost soldiers, sailors, airmen, and 
Marines are displayed on Memorial Day.
   Brea is not such a small town as it was in Eugene Streed's day. One 
hundred years later, its population, at well over forty thousand, is 40 
times the size of a rural village that gave birth to Brea Post 181. 
Yet, for all the city's growth and for all that the Post has done to 
underwrite that growth, our local Brea Legion has not always prospered 
in the same way. Indeed, I would be remiss if I failed to point out the 
struggles. The demographic shift from the mid-twentieth century, when 
service was almost universal for physically qualified men, to today's 
all-volunteer force has dramatically changed the recruiting and 
financing picture of the Legion. Local membership had declined so 
precipitously that by 2014, the Post had to sell a property it owned to 
avoid insolvency. It might have collapsed, and the story might have 
ended before this centennial celebration. But the warrior spirit has 
always been fierce among the veterans of Brea, and Post 181 has evolved 
to thrive in its new demographic environment. The membership has made 
smart business decisions and even smarter partnership arrangements with 
other veterans and civic groups like Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 5384 
and St. Angela Merici Church. The Post has come through its crisis. It 
is more intergenerational than ever before with former Brea Mayor 
Carrey Nelson--a retired Navy Master Chief who served in both the 
Second World and Korean Wars--still an active contributing member 
alongside current Brea Mayor Pro Tem and Brea Post 181 Commander Steven 
Vargas, who is also a Chief Petty Officer in the Naval Reserves. I hope 
that other Legion Posts are beginning to thrive and reinvent themselves 
to meet a rapidly changing country that, however different, still needs 
a strong American Legion. As a member of the neighboring Legion Post 
277 in Placentia, as the son of a Vietnam combat veteran and grandson 
of two World War II combat veterans, but most of all, as a member of 
the House Armed Services and Veterans Affairs Committees, I 
congratulate and commend the Legionaries of Brea Post 181 and wish them 
another century of excellence.

                          ____________________