PERU – World War II veteran Clinton Delano was honored this week for his 60 years of continuous work and loyalty to the American Legion with a certificate issued by national commander Thomas Cadmus.
The certificate was presented by Commander Rodney Jamison of Peru Post 199.
“I’m very proud of him, of what he has done. He is the perfect guy to go to get your answers,” said Jamison, a veteran of the Vietnam War.
Delano has worked on the county and state levels of the American Legion, and had been a member of the Rumford and Dixfield posts after his discharge from the Army in 1946. He was also instrumental in the formation of the Peru post in 1953.
“We’ve got so many programs, we do a lot for veterans and with patriotic programs, for Special Olympics,” he said.
He is also a walking compendium of history about the national and local American Legion organizations. He knows that the American Legion was organized in France after World War I by a son of Theodore Roosevelt, and that the American Legion is the largest veterans organization in the United States with 3 million members.
In 1953, two years after he moved to Peru, he and a group of 20 veterans decided the town was ready to form its own post. Previously, many had been members of the nearby post in Dixfield.
The group first met in the basement of Peru Elementary School. A few years later, the current post was built at the end of the Peru-Mexico Bridge.
He has held every office in the local post, he said.
Over the years, membership grew to a high of 113. But in recent years, that figure declined to almost nothing.
Jamison, with the help of Delano and others, is trying to rejuvenate the post. Right now, Jamison said there are 32 members.
Delano now holds the position of service officer for the Peru post, an office that holds him responsible for helping veterans to know the benefits available to them. He will also help with membership recruitment.
“When I was on the nominating committee in the county and district, we used peers to recruit,” he said.
That method will be used again for World War II members to recruit World War II veterans, Vietnam veterans to recruit Vietnam veterans, and so on, he said.
The post plans to organize a committee to seek veterans of more recent wars as well, such as those from the Gulf War, Grenada and the war in Iraq.
When Delano hears that his generation is the greatest, he respectfully disagrees.
“It’s our ancestors who gave us this country – they were the greatest generation,” he said, adding that service to his country by his ancestors goes back to the Revolutionary War and earlier.
With his family’s record of military service, he believes it is fitting that he was born in the former Canton armory 79 years ago. He retired from Boise Cascade in 1986. He and his wife, Mary, have three children and two grandchildren.
The Peru post meets on the second Tuesday of each month.
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