GRANBY — Just after Vietnam veteran Glen Wiley thanked the guest speaker of MassMutual’s 2015 Veterans Day breakfast and escorted her to the door, he heard his phone ring.
It was the transplant center at Massachusetts General Hospital calling about a possible match for his liver. Wiley tested positive for hepatitis C while serving in the U.S. Army in the 1970s, but it wasn’t until February 2015 that he was diagnosed with liver cancer. It had been six months of waiting and three false matches. That Nov. 11 would mark the fourth failed attempt.
“The resident comes in, because it’s the resident that always talks to you, and by now I can tell by the look on his face,” Wiley said. “I go, ‘It’s not viable, is it?'”
When the Granby resident received the same call three days later, he thought he’d be home later that night. But 15 minutes within his arrival, Wiley was sitting in wheelchair, staring into the operating room where his new liver awaited him.
It’s been 10 years since Wiley received his “gift of life,” and he’s spent a majority of it raising awareness on the importance of organ donation.
“It was just that realization that the only reason I’m here is because someone died. That was when I knew I had to give back,” Wiley said.
Research and Department of Veterans Affairs medical data shows that hepatitis C has a higher rate among Vietnam veterans than other veteran and nonveteran populations, although the reason is still unknown. Wiley was drafted on Oct. 13, 1972, just two months before the last Vietnam-era conscription call. He served in Germany for two years as a radar operator.
When Wiley came home, he got a degree in computer science and transitioned to a job in technology support, but never lost touch with his friends from the Army. Even 51 years later, Wiley said he would drop everything to visit them when they call. The only reason he still can is because of his liver transplant.
“It was about two years after I got my transplant, and I was with my oncologist, and I said, ‘I probably wouldn’t have been around if I didn’t get that transplant, huh?'” Wiley said. “He looks at me and goes ‘100%.’ He didn’t think that I would have had two years.”
Wiley started his efforts to raise awareness for organ donations with his passion for sports cars. He put the logo of Donate Life, an organization that educates the public on organ donation, on his brand new Corvette Z06 and took it to speaking events, car shows and different statehouses. He helped organize and run Corvette Club of Western Massachusetts car shows to benefit organ donation from 2016 to 2021.
Wiley’s work inspired other members of the car clubs to raise awareness for Donate Life or make donations to New England Donor Services (NEDS), a nonprofit in charge of organ and tissue donation in Massachusetts, Maine, New Hampshire, Rhode Island and Vermont. One teenager he met at an Audi club once told him he wants to be an organ donor, and Wiley had to explain that “you may want to register to be an organ donor, but no one wants you to be an organ donor.”
“He has now become a very big supporter,” Wiley said. “He has Donate Life emblems on his cars.”
While the public did not welcome Vietnam veterans home well in the 1970s — Wiley recalls someone spitting on his feet and calling him a “baby killer” less than six weeks after his conscription — his combined experience as a veteran and organ recipient extends his charity. He volunteers at local veterans hospital programs with NEDS.
“Glen is one of those guys you will see happy to help in any way,” Caitlyn Bernabucci, director of community affairs and development at NEDS. “Half the population is registered to be a donor and its through stories like Glen’s that the public sees how important donation really is.”
The Donor Life Corvette has allowed Wiley to find more people touched by organ donation that he ever imagined. He met his first organ donor family member while talking to an employee of a trailer dealership in Connecticut. He met another organ donor family member while procuring cars for a car show. One woman tried to show him her scar in the Cumberland Farms parking lot on Route 202 while he was out getting ice cream for his family.
Everywhere Wiley goes, family members of organ donors and organ recipients share their stories and gratitude with Wiley the same way that veterans connect over their shared experiences.
“It’s a very similar bond that happens,” he said.
