SCV Chief of Staff Ron Casteel spoke at the Missouri Division Reunion. Ron will be running for Lt. Commander of the SCV at the upcoming Convention and hopes he can count on your support to help in his election bid.

Ron's main goal as Lt. Commander will be to increase public awareness of the SCV and education within the SCV. One problem we have in Missouri is that not enough people realize that we exist. Name Brand awareness is what we need to grow! If people are aware of us, recruiting will be easy. People will seek us out.

Here’s Ron’s speech!

I have traveled the Confederacy serving under Commanders Ron Wilson and Denne Sweeney. Everyone is concerned where the organization is going. While there have been troubles at the National Level, those troubles ripple thru down to the Camp level.

We have to come together, we have to work as brothers in a common cause to improve the future.

We must encourage and capture our sons, our children to pass this legacy on.

How strong could we be if we could just retain our members, we’d have 80,000 if we had held on to the 50,000 members we’ve lost thru the last 10 or 15 years.

Some Divisions have 4500 members. Why can’t Missouri have 1000 members? There’s a lot of Confederate Descendants in Missouri. We can and need to work on recruiting. Public awareness will help with that.

The SCV needs to produce more educational tools to teach our kids about the truth of our heroes, culture, and heritage. We need to erect more monuments, produce more documentation, and get educational materials out to our kids and children in the public.

If we had 80,000 members nationwide, maybe the legislatures would stop running amok with the political correctness on our heritage.

As a fundraiser for the Missouri Division, how about producing a Confederate Missouri Video? Missouri played a dominant role in the War Between the States. We have great history to tell about. Some of the more interesting aspects of the War occurred in this state and with our troops fighting back east.

I’ve been filming Confederate Cemeteries throughout the country. Oakwood Cemetery in Richmond Virginia needs  a lot of help. There are over 17,000 Confederates buried there without any markers at almost of the guys are in burial trenches and the only way to get any idea of who they are is by 5 inch square coded cement post. We’ve got to come together as an organization to correct that situation. Why couldn’t we make that as nice as Arlington Cemetery? Those soldiers deserve that.

We’ve got to come together to resolve some of these important issues. We need to get on with the business of preserving our heritage and legacy for future generations. We need more of our members to actively contribute. Think of ways you can personally contribute to help make a difference. It can be time, it can be money. You can recruit a friend. Find and mark soldiers graves. There’s a lot of ways to contribute, find something you like and enjoy it. You’ll find it’s very rewarding. 

Deo Vindice!

Ron Casteel

Chief of Staff, Sons of Confederate Veterans

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