William ‘Bill’ Backes

Newly appointed VFW inspector general honored to serve

William “Bill” Backes of Hot Springs is the new national inspector general of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. A carpenter by trade, he is a lifetime member of the VFW and served a tour of duty as a Seabee with the Navy Reserve in Vietnam. He retired from the military with more than 20 years of service, including time in the Air Force Reserve, as well as the Navy Reserve. He is shown here in the canteen of VFW Post 2278 in Hot Springs.
William “Bill” Backes of Hot Springs is the new national inspector general of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. A carpenter by trade, he is a lifetime member of the VFW and served a tour of duty as a Seabee with the Navy Reserve in Vietnam. He retired from the military with more than 20 years of service, including time in the Air Force Reserve, as well as the Navy Reserve. He is shown here in the canteen of VFW Post 2278 in Hot Springs.

William “Bill” Backes of Hot Springs is a lifetime member of the Veterans of Foreign Wars. He joined the organization in 1985.

“I was looking for an opportunity to serve fellow veterans and help out where I could,” he said.

Since 1985, Backes, 66, has served in elected and appointed positions at district and department levels. He now serves on the national level as inspector general.

“It is an honor to serve,” said Backes, a native of Wisconsin, during a recent visit to VFW Post 2278 in Hot Springs.

“I was appointed the national inspector general in June at the national convention in New Orleans,” he said. “I work for the commander-in-chief, Keith E. Harman of Ohio.

“I’ve known Keith for 12 or 14 years,” Backes said. “We were state commanders together in 2004-2005. He was state commander of Ohio, and I was state commander of Wisconsin.

“I got a phone call around Christmas last year, and it was Keith,” Backes said. “He asked me if I would serve as his inspector general this year.

“After I picked the phone up off the floor, I said, ‘Yes,’” Backes said, laughing. “I was shocked that he would ask me.

“It’s such an honor to serve on a national level. I’ve had some committee appointments — Veterans Service, POW/MIA — but this is my first major appointment.”

According to information from the National VFW headquarters, Backes was also appointed special aide-de-camp from 2008-2010.

Harman, of Delphos, Ohio, said he appointed Backes to serve as inspector because “I know he is a good worker for the organization. Bill and I have been friends since 2002. We served as state commanders together, and we got to be friends and remain that way,” Harman said.

“I have all the confidence in the world that he will do a good job. States have various meetings during the year, and we only have three national officers to attend all those meetings. So, in some cases, I may ask Bill to attend one or two of those meetings as a representative of the national organization,” Harman said.

“Also, sometimes a VFW department will experience some kind of difficulty that we might need to look into,” he said. “I may ask Bill to travel to that state and determine what the problem is … if it is a valid complaint or just a disgruntled member. He will help us make that determination.

“I know he will do a good job with whatever I ask of him.”

Backes said, “I’ll be doing whatever the commander-in-chief wants me to do. I work for him.

“I’ll travel throughout the year. My term will expire at the 2018 national convention when a new commander-in-chief is elected and brings in his own slate of people.”

Backes is a carpenter by trade.

A graduate of Nicolet High School in Glendale, Wisconsin, he joined the Navy Reserve in 1970 and served as a Seabee for 10 years.

“I was a Seabee — a carpenter in the Navy,” he said, smiling. “We built things.”

According to the website navy.mil, the Seabees, also known as United States Naval Construction Battalions, were formed during World War II.

Backes served an active tour of duty in Vietnam from 1971-72.

“We built houses in the villages,” he said.

In 1980, he transferred to the Air Force Reserve and retired in 1990 as a master sergeant.

“I retired with 20 years, seven months of military service,” he said.

Backes’ military decorations include the Air Force Reserve Force Meritorious Service Medal, the National Defense Medal, the Vietnam Service Medal, the Vietnam Campaign Medal, the Republic of Vietnam Gallantry Cross Citation and the Republic of Vietnam Meritorious Unit Citation.

He attended the Navy Builder “A” school in 1971, carpenter-apprenticeship school in 1972 and was a journeyman carpenter from 1975 to 2011, when he retired as a carpenter from the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs in Milwaukee.

Backes joined the VFW in 1985 at Post 6377 in Sussex, Wisconsin, and later transferred his membership to Post 8320 in Brookfield, Wisconsin. He served as department commander of Wisconsin in 2004-2005.

Although Backes maintains his Gold Legacy Life membership in the VFW at Post 8230 in Brookfield, he has become an active member of Post 2278 in Hot Springs. He attends regular meetings at the local post and is a member of its honor guard.

His wife, Karen, is a member of the local VFW Auxiliary.

“Post 2278 does a lot of things in the community,” he said. “We support local

spay-and-neuter clinics for animals. We sponsor youth contests such as the Voice for Democracy and Patriot’s Pen essay contests. We give scholarships. We participate in VFW Buddy Poppy Day.

“We also have an active honor guard, of which I am a member. We are honored to remember our fellow veterans by participating in their funerals. Sometimes we go to funerals three times a week. We usually travel within a 100-mile radius, but we have driven farther. We do this to support the families and their veterans.”

Backes said the VFW Auxiliary is active as well.

“They have rummage sales two or three times a year,” he said. “It is no longer the Ladies Auxiliary. It is a gender-neutral auxiliary; men can join, too.”

Backes said the VFW is a family-friendly organization.

“We have activities here for the family, not just the veterans,” he said. “We are trying to get away from that old image of ‘the bar at the end of the road.’

“We also are getting younger members. We are seeing veterans of Iraqi Freedom and Desert Storm starting to join.”

Backes said he hopes to see the national VFW membership grow.

“When we go to Washington, D.C., those membership numbers are impressive when we work to get legislation passed to benefit our veterans,” he said. “When you have 1.2 million people on your membership roll, [legislators] listen.”

As Backes and his wife traveled throughout the country going to national VFW conventions, they were on the lookout for someplace “warmer, with less snow” than Wisconsin.

“I had a friend in Virginia who had bought a place in Hot Springs Village and suggested we look for a place in this area. We fell in love with Hot Springs,” he said.

“We moved here in 2012. We built a new house out in the county off Airport Road,” Backes said.

“I am just living the retired life,” he said, laughing. “I do a little carpentry here and there just to keep busy.”

Bill and Karen Backes, who will celebrate their 44th wedding anniversary in October, have three adult children.

Their older daughter, Ann Zimmer, 42, and her husband, Jason, live in South Milwaukee, Wisconsin. The Backeses’ younger daughter, Sara Kendall, 40, and her husband, Dan, live in Menomonee Falls, Wisconsin. Their son, Stephen Backes, 38, and his wife, Laura, live in Germantown, Wisconsin, with their children, Brooklyn, 3, and Zachary, who will be 1 in January.

“We left them all there [in Wisconsin],” Backes said, smiling. “We try to get back there at least three times a year. We for sure go at Christmastime since both of our grandchildren have birthdays in January.

“They have all been to see us here, too,” he said.

Backes is a son of the late Jean A. and June Backes. Backes’ father served in the Navy during World War II, stationed at Norfolk, Virginia.

“I am the only one of my generation in the family to serve in the military,”

Backes said.

“I would do it again,” he said, referring to joining the Naval Reserve. “To me, the reserves have been like a family … a nice bunch of people.”

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