John's Open Letters Vol. 1 #9

October 25, 2001

Dear Sirs and Ladies,

At 1:40 p.m. Oct. 22, 2001 I received an e-mail from Harley Coon, Pres. K.W.V.A., Subject: Hearing, to inform me that on Jan. 15, 2001 at 10:00 a.m. a Hearing will be conducted by the Executive Council on charges against me. After reading a litany of complaints about me and outright false accusations about the material in my Open letters I decided to put this in my Ninth Open Letter. I will save most of my material I had for my Ninth Letter and put it in my Tenth Letter.

To get back to the "Hearing" e-mail. I will tell you all now, these charges are false and misleading to our Officers and Members, and I will have representation at the Hearing because I am not able to travel because of my health.

I question Mr. Coon's remarks that state, "Constructive criticism is necessary and appropriate in any organization and is welcomed." There is a censorship of information that is allowed in our official magazine, The Graybeards, and usually any criticism that is proposed by our well meaning Members is ignored and never brought up again. Nothing is welcomed unless Mr. Coon has his stamp of approval on it. When Mr. Coon accuses me of a Personal tirade" I take umbrage at that. Never once in these

letters have I insulted, slandered, spoken disrespectfully or in any way demeaned Mr. Coon. Conversely, I have always shown respect by calling him our President or Mr. Coon in all of my

letters. It would only be fitting and proper to show respect to the President of the K.W.V.A. for he is the elected head of the organization. I will reserve my comments about that for a later date. Much of my information was provided by other Members and with their permission I printed it in my

letters. My own personal comments and remarks speak for themselves. Mr. Coon says this is only "hearsay" and not to be true. I read that Mr. Coon states he can not indefinitely ignore this kind of conduct by any K.W.V.A. Member. Then he says any decision made on the matter will not be made by "him", but the "duly elected Council". I have said before in other matters, when you take away the conductor the orchestra doesn't make any music. I would hope Mr. Coon would quit picking on our Members and be the good leader that he says he is. We do not live in a country like the poor people in Russia did for so many years. This is a democracy and not one person can tell me I don't have the freedom of speech and expression. We do not need a dictator here.

I am surprised Mr. Coon did not want to see my DD214 to see if I was eligible to be a Member in the K.W.V.A. like he did about Mr. Charley Price. And then to question his service to his country. That is a terrible insult. Mr. Price is an ex. Col. and a proud Veteran who helps Veterans' causes constantly. Apparently Mr. Coon thinks Members who have not been in the K.W.V.A. very long should not be involved because Mr. Price has been a Member for about a year. Question does he feel this way about all the new Members? Again I feel this is not proper conduct for the President of the K.W.V.A. The remarks I read from Mr. Coon seem to belittle Mr. Price. Is Mr. Price on a "hit list"?

To sum up this part of my letter, so I can get on with some of the nice e-mails I received, if Mr. Coon gets away with this, then no one in the K.W.V.A is safe from his wrath. You be the judge about my letters. Thank you. I reread all of my

letters and I still don't see one word where I insulted Mr. Coon or the organization. I love the K.W.V.A. and probably always will. I had planned to put the K.W.V.A. in my will but with all of my health problems and the high costs of medical care I decided to wait because I do not want to burden my wife.

Recently Mr. Coon has stated he would not answer Mr. Price's or my letters. Well, he did, and it is the most well versed, spelled out, written letter I ever received from him. I wonder how that could have happened???

As I said in all my letters, I wanted the truth and I have always had the best interests of the K.W.V.A. at heart. I've found that there has been a lot of dissension and concern about the K.W.V.A. that goes back several years and that seems to have come to a boil, from all the flack I have heard, about and since the St. Louis meeting. Why did Mr. Coon and some of his supporters "boycott" that meeting? It was not his agenda, I know, but it was a legally called meeting according to the By-Laws and then was declared illegal by Mr. Coon's legal advisor.

Now on a much lighter note. I received a nice letter dated Oct. 18 from a lady in the south. She writes, "My husband was a wonderful man and got me very involved with the K.W.V.A. but since he has died only one person has been e-mailing me and calling me. Even our local Chapter has not kept in touch very well. I do not know why I received your Eighth Open Letter but I am glad I did and thank you for sending the others. Several people in our Chapter need to read your letters. I will copy them and pass them out. Again thank you and keep me on your list. Sincerely . . . ." Of all the many letters I have received this one touched me the most. Here is a widow of an active, dedicated Member who feels abandoned since her husband passed away. I hope she is an Associate Member for she would be an asset in any Chapter. This is not meant to criticize anyone for how she feels. My complaint is, we should not forget our departed Members and especially their widows for they usually are an integral part of the Member's involvement in the K.W.V.A. You can rest assured you will get my future letters and thank you for passing them out.

Another e-mail: "For what it worth, I concur. Meetings must follow a set rules of law, charter laws or whatever the governing principle of the organization.. No one person should or is entitled to control an organization except in a total dictatorship." I agree 100%.

This e-mail was hard for me to figure out. A Dept. of Florida Officer commented that Mr. Coon's reason he didn't answer his letter was 1) he didn't have his phone number, and 2) his computer crashed and he lost his number. Apparently Mr. Coon lost that number but somehow had another Florida Member's number to answer a piece of correspondence. I would believe if a computer crashed it would lose "all" of the numbers and not just one. Someone please tell me how this is possible.

Mr. Coon labeled Director Tramonte and several others as "troublemakers" for calling the meeting in St. Louis. The By-Laws say you can do it if you go by the rules and according to documentation on file everything was done properly. Mr. Coon and his supporters, at that time did not attend the meeting but did boycott it by deliberately not showing up. I don't know the reason he did this except for the fact it was not his agenda. Any Director can call an Executive Board meeting. There are too many people who don't know the full issues involving the Officers of the K.W.V.A. I was guilty of this but since I have been writing I have received a flood of information that I will try to pass on. My Tenth Open Letter will be forthcoming.

Please acknowledge receiving this letter and your personal opinion would be greatly appreciated.

Freedom is not free, and it never was.

Respectfully, John Kronenberger