July 10, 2006

Dear Senator:

I am enthusiastically informing you and your office of the newly-formed Veterans and Military Families for Progress organization. Our mission is to ensure that the rights and needs of veterans, active-duty service members, Guard and Reserve personnel and their families are understood by the American public, endorsed by our elected officials, and protected by regulation and public policy initiatives. VMFP held a Press Conference on May 17th, 2006 at the National Press Club to announce our organization to the public.

Veterans and Military Families for Progress was formally constituted in September of 2005 as a national organization established to serve the entire military community to promote programs and policies affecting the rights, benefits, services and quality of life for active duty personnel, veterans and their families. At that meeting it was voted that the organization be created as a 501(c) (4) tax-exempt, nonprofit and nonpartisan organization addressing the needs of veterans and their families.

Veterans and Military Families for Progress will advocate on issues of policy affecting veterans, military personnel and their families, and we will endorse and work on behalf of candidates who embrace our position on these issues. Our organization by design is quite unique in that family members participate at all levels of our organization with full voting rights.

Our new veterans’ organization recognized the void among existing VSOs that presently exclude Reservists and Active Military and their families from membership and/or leadership. VMFP members, from their own service-connected experience, are cognizant of the critical need to address such issues at the national level via a formally incorporated organization. Now and in the future Veterans and Military Families for Progress will be dedicated to veterans, active military personnel, reservists and their families, and we are confident that with your assistance we will be able to help America keep faith with those who have served and sacrificed for our country.

Thank you for taking the time to read this letter. We look forward to working with you.

Respectfully,


Matthew J. Cary, President
Veterans and Military Families for Progress