For more than 50 years, members of the American Legion Post 14 have met at their downtown Bozeman headquarters at 225 E. Main St.
That’s where they kept hundreds of American and ceremonial flags, World War II and Korean memorabilia, scrapbooks and special rifles used for gun salutes at local veterans’ funerals.
But after the building and much of its contents were destroyed in the March 5 natural-gas explosion, the nonprofit service group Saturday opted to meet across town, at the Veterans of Foreign Wars facility at the Filling Station on North Rouse Avenue.
The Legion members no longer have a place to call “home.”
It could take years to replace their building, but true to their war-veteran status, there was no whining at Saturday’s meeting. Legion members were focused more on how to thank emergency service and government personnel for their response to the blast than on what their group has lost.
“We’re just going to keep on going,” said Commander Len Albright, who brought his father’s old gavel and a bell he’d found to run the meeting. The ones he usually uses are still in the downtown building.
As Albright spoke, Legion members passed around and signed a stack of thank you cards.
It will be another week before the Legion can sort through the wreckage in the building. Members have to wait for the insurance inspectors to document the structure and its contents before they can start clean up.
But from outward appearances, the damage to the building looks bad. The middle of the roof is basically now in the basement, said Legion bar manager Tom Jones.
“It kind of went like this,” he said, making a “V” shape with his hands to show members how the roof caved in the middle.
Established in 1919 in Bozeman, the local Legion has 308 members, made up of veterans from all military branches who served in World War II, the Korean War, Vietnam and the Gulf War.
The Legion is responsible for numerous community-service projects, from a local baseball program to raising money for the Vietnam Wall replica at Sunset Hills Cemetery.
Legion members hang American flags on Main Street for holidays. They give elementary school students small flags of their own and tell them about the flag’s history. The flags they used for both activities may well be ashes now.
In the days prior to the explosion, Legion members had been gearing up for a celebration.
Readying for its annual St. Patrick’s Day party, the group had ordered 100 pounds of corned beef from the Meat Shoppe in Bozeman.
“I had just put 20 pounds of butter in the (Legion) refrigerator ‘cause it was on sale,” member Jim Marchwick said Saturday.
But rather than gripe about missing the party, or losing their “home,” Legion officials asked members to “please, please” go buy some of the corned beef.
