Ex-Officio Member
Arthur H. Wilson, a service-connected Vietnam veteran who served in the Air Force, was co-founder of the Disabled Veterans’ Life Memorial Foundation in 1998 and served as president of the board until 2015. He currently still serves as an ex-officio member.
Wilson’s DAV (Disabled American Veterans) career began in 1966 as a national service officer trainee in Atlanta followed by assignments in Buffalo, New York, and Philadelphia, and later in supervisory positions at DAV national service offices in Syracuse, New York, New Orleans and Boston. He became supervisor of DAV’s National Appeals Office at the Department of Veterans Affairs Board of Veterans’ Appeals in Washington, D.C., in 1974. He also served as president of the National Guild of Attorneys-in-Fact in 1973-74. He served 12 years as national service director in DAV’s Washington Headquarters beginning in 1981 and then served as its executive director, guiding the organization’s national service, legislative, employment and voluntary services programs. In 1994, he was appointed as DAV’s national adjutant/chief executive officer, a position he held until his retirement June 1, 2013.
A graduate of Lynn Classical High School in Lynn, Massachusetts, Wilson attended Burdette College in Lynn until enlisting in the Air Force in September 1962. He served as a runway construction specialist in Vietnam, the Philippine Islands, Thailand and Taiwan from 1964 to 1966. Shortly after his discharge, he was admitted to a Department of Veterans Affairs medical center for major surgery.
Wilson, a native of Nahant, Massachusetts, has been active in a number of DAV chapters and departments, and holds membership in several other military and veterans organizations. He and his wife, Mary, have four children and seven grandchildren.