There are childhood memories you never forget. When I was 7, my father, a World War II and Korean War veteran, took me to visit my uncle, another World War II veteran, at the Veterans Health Administration in Connecticut.
What I remember has been seared into my brain ever since.
Lined up along a corridor at the VA hospital were several men who my dad later told me were all soldiers who had returned from fighting in Vietnam. The year was 1970 and, by then, I had seen the war brought into our living room in living color on the evening news. I knew Vietnam was not a good place to be.
The men I saw that day were unkept and in terrible shape. Some were paralyzed, some had limbs amputated, with bags of urine tied to their wheelchairs. It was a tough image to see. I shamefully admit that at the time, my naïve boyhood brain thought the word, “gross.”
What I saw did not at all register with the G.I. Joe I played with or my superhero comic books.
When we got back to our car, my father saw that I was visibly shaken by what I had just seen.
“I know that was hard for you to see,” he told me. “Life can be hard. For some it’s much harder. I’m one of the lucky ones. The men you saw in there have been given the worse luck.”
As we pulled away from the hospital, my father got upset. His mouth quivered and he clenched the steering wheel tight.
“How did we let this happen?” he said, looking straight ahead.
“What happened?” I asked.
“Our country should never let what you saw happen,” he said. “They were just high school kids, just boys not much older than you. They deserve much better, not stacked in a hallway like cord wood.”
Our nation was faced with a staggering number of veterans in need of medical care in the 1970s and although the VA and state-run veteran homes were in operation at the time, their capacity were inadequate to meet the demand.
The situation worsened over the years during post-war recessions and as state budgets flattened out, the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke suffered from staffing shortages and having to fit as many veterans as possible into rooms not much bigger than a walk-in closet.
Despite a waiting list of more than 300 veterans seeking care at the Soldiers’ Home, the state failed to act on a construction proposal in 2011 that would have renovated and replaced the Holyoke facility with a 270-bed facility.
Call it what you will, but the Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke has not been a priority for those in Boston.
Then this past spring, another horrific image came into our living rooms on the evening news — 76 veterans at the Holyoke home died in a matter of weeks from COVID-19 and subsequent investigations and ongoing inquiries point to several wrong doings.
The resulting outcry has finally forced those in power to admit the conditions and lack of support over the years and elected officials have promised to build a new Soldiers’ Home in Holyoke with private rooms for every veteran needing care, better staffing for them and better management to ensure they are treated with honor and dignity.
But actions speak louder than words.
With the World War II and Korean War veteran population plummeting, the state said there wouldn’t be enough veterans 30 or more years from now to substantiate a facility bigger than 180 to 204 beds.
That’s a number much smaller than the 260 or more veterans that used to live at the home less than 10 years ago and before the state reduced the number of beds to 235 after VA inspections said rooms were too small.
Family members of veterans have complained that it can take six months to more than a year for a veteran to get a bed after applying for care.
What happened next was a textbook grassroots effort that you would expect here in our Pioneer Valley.
A coalition, which includes former staff at the Soldiers’ Home, family members and concerned citizens, wrote letters, spoke with news media, and talked to everyone they could about the need for a larger Soldiers’ Home with enough beds to easily cover the current demand and for any contingency in the future, to include that next war on the horizon.
“I don’t want to hear the words, ‘sorry, there is a six-to-nine-month waiting list,’” said John Hurley, a coalition member and a disabled Vietnam Marine Corps veteran in remarks to the board of trustees on Tuesday. Like many veterans, he knows he will need nursing home care someday. “It is now time to think of the future.”
The trustees and area legislators, noting the public outcry, pushed back on the state’s plan, calling it inadequate. On Tuesday, the state agreed to increase its proposed bed count by 25% with an additional floor and beds for long-term care.
The Vietnam veteran was dealt one of the worse deck of cards. Drafted to fight an unpopular war, they fought a second war of outright derision, indifference, and apathy when they returned home.
Their median age is now past 70 and their era makes up the largest percentage of veterans in our state. Many need skilled nursing care now and nearly all will need help sooner or later for the next 30 or more years.
I can’t ever forget that day some 50 years ago with my father.
Someday, he said, you’ll be old enough to stop what I saw from happening, he told me. Veterans deserve the best care every day, when they need it and for the rest of their lives, he said.
That someday is today.
John Paradis, a retired U.S. Air Force lieutenant colonel, lives in Florence and writes a monthly column for the Gazette. He can be reached at columnists@gazettenet.com.