AberdeenLegion

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The American Legion is a national organization of war-time military veterans. To be eligible, a person must have served at least one day of active duty during a period of declared war, as defined by the US Congress. A person need not have actually served in a combat zone, but must have been on active duty status at least one day during a recognized period. Currently, these dates are:

War Era	From	Until
Persian Gulf	Aug 2, 1990	open
Persian Gulf	Dec 20, 1989	Jul 31, 1990
Panama/Grenada	Aug 24, 1982	Jul 31, 1989
Viet Nam	Feb 28, 1961	May 7, 1975
Korea	Jun 25, 1950	Jan 31, 1955
World War II*	Dec 7, 1941	Dec 31, 1946
World War I	Apr 6, 1917	Nov 11, 1918

* Merchant Marines from WWII are eligible, but the dates of service must be between Dec 7^th, 1941, and Aug 15^th, 1945.

Service members from the Army, Navy, Air Force, Marines, and Coast Guard are eligible in any listed time period, and members of the Merchant Marines during WWII may be eligible subject to the date restrictions given below the table.

There can be some confusion with membership because of the structure of the Legion year. Your membership will be effective the date your application is accepted, and will run for one calendar year from that point. The LEGION MEMBERSHIP YEAR, however, runs from July through June. At the start of each membership year, National Headquarters will begin sending out notices for the next year (in July of 2007, notices will start to go out for 2008 dues). For this reason, it is common for a person to join, and receive a notice a few months later that their dues are up for renewal, even though their membership is still "good" for several months yet. This issue is normally only a concern in the first year of membership, but it can be an annoyance when first joining the organization, and it is worth noting.