With just a fraction of its membership showing up for the crucial vote, the North Riverside Veterans’ Memorial VFW Post #6869 members decided to fold their organization into Berwyn VFW Post #2378 at a meeting held Feb. 12.

According to Jack Meshek, the Illinois VFW’s District 4 commander, the vote was 10-5 in favor of merging the post with Berwyn. The North Riverside VFW post has a membership around 600, according to Meshek.

“They’ve got a lot of members, but no one wanted to run for office or do the work required to keep the post open,” said Meshek, who is also a member and former commander of Berwyn Post #2378.

“We sent out 600 letters a month ago explaining the vote,” he said. “Fifteen people came to the meeting.”

The Berwyn VFW post has just 390 members, Meshek said.

Reached by phone last week, the acting commander of the Veterans’ Memorial Post, Jim Manda, declined to speak on the record.

The Veterans’ Memorial Post and its building at 2622 Desplaines Ave. date to 1963. Its relatively high membership count reflects the fact that the post is a melting pot of former posts in Cicero, Lyons, Melrose Park, Westchester and others, according to Meshek.

Veterans organizations such as the VFW have been experiencing declines in membership for years and post closings and mergers are a reality across the country as its aging membership continues to dwindle.

According to Meshek, “95 percent” of the Veterans’ Memorial Post members are World War II or Korean War veterans.

Meshek, himself a Vietnam veteran, didn’t join the organization until seven years ago. He said that the VFW alienated a whole generation of former servicemen during the Vietnam years, when veterans were returning from overseas.

“The VFW shot itself in the foot in the ’60s and ’70s, when the Vietnam guys were coming home,” Meshek said. “Vietnam veterans came to posts and were turned away. Now they need someone to take over and nobody wants to do it.”

The VFW has tried to reach out to servicemen returning from Afghanistan and Iraq, and many have joined the organization.

“But a lot of them come to one meeting, pay their dues and are never seen again,” Meshek said.

For the time being, the consolidated post will operate two buildings, the main post home in Berwyn at 1529 S. Harlem Ave., and the longtime home of the North Riverside post.

The North Riverside building will continue to host its popular Friday Night Fish Fry, Meshek said.

Whether the building will continue to be able to operate as part of the combined post is uncertain, however.

“It may,” said Meshek, “but it depends on whether we can keep them both open and pay the bills for both buildings.