Letters

INVISIBLE & DISRESPECTED

The Women Veterans Committee Report in the last issue really hit home for me. Part of Kate O’Hare-Palmer’s report discussed the lack of respect for women veterans. I am a life member of VVA and so is my brother. When we go to events together, we both wear identical VVA caps and vests. People walk up to my brother, shake his hand, and thank him for his service. Then they look at me and just walk away.

I can’t tell you how many times this has happened. I was a WAC who served my country with honor and pride. When I get treated this way, I feel invisible and disrespected.

Dianne Hermann
Joplin, Missouri

HONOR DENIED

On page 28 of the July/August issue, it’s stated that Ret. Marine Col. Barney Barnum was one of two Medal of Honor recipients denied a White House ceremony. There were others: Col. Donald G. Cook, the first Marine captured in Vietnam, also was denied the ceremony by President Jimmy Carter. Col. Cook’s remains have never been recovered.

On May 16, 1980, Navy Secretary Edward Hidalgo presented the Medal of Honor to Col. Cook’s widow in a ceremony at the Pentagon. The First Marine Captured in Vietnam by Donald L. Price, published in 2007 by McFarland & Co., tells his story.

I just want to keep the record straight.

David Peterson
By Email

ARBITRARY

I’ve read your press releases and magazine coverage of VVA’s advocacy for the Forever GI Bill. I take exception with the reference to an “arbitrary” expiration date. Do you really think it’s arbitrary that Congress set a fifteen-year limit on education benefits? More likely that figure was determined after much work on cost projections. The time limit, then, was an act of fiscal responsibility rather than capriciousness.

So now that VVA has succeeded in removing cost constraints, what does it predict taxpayers must pay? For that matter, why should the Forever GI Bill be so excessively generous with benefits?

I respect these young veterans, but they are not citizen-soldiers who will spend years away from their chosen profession to perform a citizen’s duty and therefore deserve a leg up. This is their profession, and one wonders if preferential treatment for lifers is really in the national interest.

Gerald O’Neal
By Email

ROLLING BLUNDER

The pit stop in Nitro, W.Va., has nothing to do with Rolling Thunder (July/August, p. 39).  It’s Run For The Wall.

In 1988 Ray Manzo, a Vietnam vet Marine, started Rolling Thunder by riding around Washington, D.C. It took about an hour. He wrote letters to organizations all over the country, inviting them to join him the next year.

In 1989 I, also a Vietnam vet Marine, rode from San Diego to D.C., taking ten days, then joining Manzo and hundreds of others in Rolling Thunder II. This is Run For The Wall. In a nutshell, RT is a couple of hours riding through D.C. while RFTW is a ten-day, 3,000-mile cross-country ride ending in D.C. for Memorial Day with some riders also joining RT on Sunday.  

Several VVA chapters support RFTW, and many of the riders are members of VVA.  

I was unable to attend VVA’s National Convention in New Orleans because I was riding with Rolling Barrage 17, in which Canadian veterans bike across Canada. About 30,000 Canadians joined the U.S. military during Vietnam but receive nothing from their government. They can receive VA help in the U.S. if they cross the border. This ride across Canada included many Vietnam veterans, and many Afghan and Iraq veterans as well. As part of the ride, I visited the gravesite of L.Cpl. Vincent Bernard, a First Nation native killed in Quang Tri in 1968 and buried in Wagmatcook, Nova Scotia.

James Gregory
Charleston, South Carolina

ATOMIC EXPOSURE

As a Navy nuclear veteran of the ’60s I got interested several years ago in Johnston Atoll. I have been posting stories about the island on www.kirbstone.net/johnston-island and my blog, www.kirbyontheloose.com As far as I know, there has never been notification that servicemen were exposed to dangerous levels of radioactivity and they should get regular checkups for radiogenic illnesses. While the Justice Department has a program for veterans who were involved with atomic testing, the cutoff for benefits was January 1, 1963.

RECA covers on-site participants—individuals present at atmospheric nuclear test locations—but does not cover veterans whose work stations and living spaces were radioactive as a result of these atmospheric tests. On Johnston Atoll the radiation hazards—and hazards from biological and chemical elements—started in 1962 and continued until at least 1985, when the cleanup of plutonium finally got underway. Thousands of U.S. military and civilian employees were on Johnston Atoll and exposed to dangerous levels of plutonium from atomic testing conducted as part of Project Dominic, and other secret projects, including Project Red Hat and Program 437.

Mike Kirby
Northampton, Massachusetts

FOIA UPDATE

As the wife of a VVA life member, I thank you for your ongoing efforts to shine a light on the VA. You bring transparency and provide factual information on the agency’s activities as they affect veterans, caregivers, and families.

However, I have not been so lucky in receiving information directly from the VA.

Like many other veterans and their families, we have used the congressionally mandated FOIA and Privacy Act statutes to gain access to VA records that would support our valid benefits claims. But since the VA is among what NSA called the “scofflaw” agencies that have illegally failed to update their FOIA regulations as mandated in the 2016 amendment, veterans are unfairly being denied access to their requested records based on decisions citing antiquated VA rules.

The VA last updated its FOIA CFRs in August 2011. Please join us in urging the VA to comply with current FOIA statutes.

Again, thank you for the many services VVA provides.

Sandra Demoruelle
By Email

BETTER SERVED

In the long run, veterans would be better served if the private sector took over veterans health care. Of course the VA would negotiate with local providers as Medicare and Medicaid do. This would save a lot of money by not maintaining and building new VA hospitals, as well as hiring doctors, nurses, and other providers.

The private-sector hospitals generally would offer more services. Last fall I watched a TV reporter who said the VA system might be dismantled. I have urged my government representatives to support this idea. I urge all veterans organizations to look into this proposal before dismissing it out of hand. The private sector took care of us before we went to the VA, and I feel it did a good job, although it had faults, too.

Lou Steff
By Email

SOUL OF A POET

VVA’s National Convention was a huge success: 818 delegates and many guests celebrated the history and future of VVA. But even before the Convention, I had begun to think about how VVA needs a poet laureate. Several delegates agreed with me that VVA needs someone like Steve Mason (our first poet laureate) to step forward and bring back our soul.

Inside VVA must be a member with the talent and heart to be that soul. John Rowan said, “Send me a name.” I challenge a member to take the mantle of poet laureate (not me; I can’t rhyme two words). Help VVA recapture its soul and be the man or woman to rekindle the heart of Vietnam Veterans of America. Thanks.

Darrol Brown
Gardnerville, Nevada

PTSD HELP BEHIND BARS

I was very impressed with the letter from Shon Pernice (July/August) about veteran units in Ohio and Missouri prisons. Here in Pennsylvania, we have established veterans service units (VSUs). VVA Chapter 46 is the only incarcerated chapter left standing in Pennsylvania. We have been working hard getting Vietnam-era veterans, as well as Iraqi and Afghanistan veterans, recognized in the state. These VSUs are in three different penitentiaries: SCI-Dallas, SCI-Houtzdale, and SCI-Mercer. Each prison has a block dedicated for veterans. They are pretty successful. They help veterans with jobs and housing, as well as classes on PTSD and other ailments.

The problem is that they only take veterans with a year or less to their minimum. This is what we are fighting, and maybe other states can help us. It leaves out a significant number of incarcerated veterans. Those veterans from the Vietnam era who never had the chance to present PTSD, or even get the proper help for their PTSD, are left out. Some of these brothers are doing long or life sentences because of PTSD.

Our chapter has brought in psychologists to give PTSD classes and help us get through it. We advocate for treatment of PTSD and TBI, as well as other ailments from military experience. It’s a hard row to hoe, and the fight is never easy. To be honest, many warriors have gone by the wayside.

I commend Ohio and Missouri for recognizing veterans. I would like to know if the veterans units are for all veterans and if they help veterans with long or life sentences to move forward in their efforts to be productive, just as they would do for those short-termers. I really feel that all incarcerated VVA chapters need to come together to fight this fight. Maybe then someone at the top will see our efforts and do something about it. It’s been way too long, and we cannot leave veterans behind.

Commer Glass
Graterford, Pennsylvania

SELECTIVE DATA

I agree with Kerry O’Hara (Letters, May/ June). The author of “Selective Service: Funneling the Poor and Working Class into Combat” presented a very biased report with very narrow or pointed studies with regard to the data she used. This is a very complex issue that requires a broader scope of research. The generalization that the poor have always carried more than their fair share is just that, a generalization. Even you admitted that in your response to O’Hara. 

My draft board was predominately made up of African-American women. That’s based on my visits there, not a guess. My basic training unit had six African-American soldiers out of 180. You can do the math for that one. You are welcome to review the book I received after completing my training at Fort Knox if you would like to validate my data.  

The helicopter company I served with in Vietnam had over 250 soldiers and 14 of them were African American, including the company commander, although that number was constantly changing. Phu Loi was also representative of that level of diversity, and that included the 82nd Airborne, 1st Infantry Division, the Cav, etc. 

Interestingly, you didn’t have any data to dispute the data O’Hara presented, just a regurgitation of the story your author presented. I’m not buying it, based on the data and my personal experience.

Gerry Wright
By Email