11 minute read
Empowering Veterans
Empowering Veterans in Both Urban and Rural Communities
By Jim Lorraine, President and CEO of America’s Warrior Partnership
Veterans, their families and caregivers all face unique challenges based on their individual situations. Yet regardless of where a veteran lives, the best support they can receive often starts with a local leader who knows the community and understands how to access the most appropriate resources and services. This focus on local leaders is part of the foundation of our Community Integration service model, which empowers communities with the tools and partnerships to design a program that proactively and holistically serves their local veterans. The goal is to ensure any community can connect veterans with available resources and opportunities, whether that community is in a dense urban city or a remote rural town.
WWW.HomelandMagazine.com / APRIL 2020 One of our newest programs is an example of how service providers in remote communities can empower veterans. That program is the Diné Naazbaa’ Partnership, one of the first community-based initiatives dedicated to empowering the Navajo Nation’s military veterans, their families and caregivers. Led by our own Inann Johns, the program is currently conducting proactive outreach to the estimated 15,000 veterans living in the Navajo Nation. The team is educating these veterans on the opportunities that exist locally in Apache County, Arizona, while also connecting them with available support services.
Inann serves as the “boots on the ground” for the Diné Naazbaa’ Partnership, which means she is physically in the community serving as a valuable resource for both veterans and veteran-serving organizations. With a clear understanding of the programs that serve Apache County, Inann ensures that veterans know where they can go for assistance with anything from applying for benefits to housing assistance. For local organizations seeking resources for a veteran that they cannot provide in-house, Inann connects those organizations with national programs through the America’s Warrior Partnership Network (The Network) to fill the gaps in local services. In the short span that the program has been active, Inann and the team have already connected with more than 100 veterans of the Navajo Nation to educate them on available resources.
This model of empowering a local program with the tools and resources to holistically serve veterans has also proven effective in heavily urban areas. Our affiliate in Atlanta, The Warrior Alliance, doubled its goal of engaging 500 veterans by serving 1,000 local veterans in their first year implementing the Community Integration program by connecting these veterans with resources to maximize their quality of life. On the opposite side of the country, we work with the Goodwill of Orange County in California to support the Tierney Center for Veteran Services, which hosts representatives from a wide range of local organizations to assist Orange County veterans with a variety of issues under the same roof.
Local veteran-serving organizations seeking access to veteran resources beyond their community can access The Network, a coordination center that assists communities with obtaining access to national resources when local programs either do not exist or are exhausted. The Network is staffed by a diligent team of social workers committed to addressing every individual case they receive with dedicated care and attention, no matter where in the country that a veteran may live. Community groups interested in joining The Network or making a referral can visit AmericasWarriorPartnership.org/The-Network.
Veterans of the Navajo Nation who wish to connect with the Diné Naazbaa’ Partnership can call (928) 910-4225. Information about our affiliates in Atlanta (TheWarriorAlliance.org) and Orange County (OCGoodwill.org/Tierney-Center) are also available online.
Seeking the right resources does not have to be a challenge, and by coming together as a community to bridge the gaps between local programs and national programs, we can empower veterans to build the postmilitary lives they have earned through their service.
About the Author Jim Lorraine is President and CEO of America’s Warrior Partnership, a national nonprofit that empowers communities to empower veterans. The organization’s mission starts with connecting community groups with local veterans to understand their unique situations. With this knowledge in mind, America’s Warrior Partnership connects local groups with the appropriate resources to proactively and holistically support veterans at every stage of their lives.
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STRONG Going
At 100 years old, DAV member continues serving fellow veterans
Army Air Corps and Air Force veteran Harlan Plummer holds a Congressional Record acknowledging his more than 11,000 hours and 30-plus years as a DAV volunteer.
By Ashleigh Byrnes
In 2017, Ohio veteran Harlan Plummer was awarded DAV’s George H. Seal Memorial Trophy, which honors the best of thousands of remarkable men and women who serve in the Department of Veterans Affairs Voluntary Service (VAVS) Program.
In December 2019, Plummer—who is a veteran of World War II, as well as the wars in Korea and Vietnam—turned 100, and he is still racking up volunteer hours with DAV. At last count, he had accumulated more than 11,000 lifetime hours, 500 of which he logged since receiving the award in 2017. Plummer has volunteered through the VAVS Program for three decades in various capacities, including serving as a volunteer driver at the VA medical center in Chillicothe, Ohio, helping ensure veterans are able to access the health care they have earned. And while his devotion to veterans is clearly linked to his time in service, his volunteer spirit also seems to stem from his own experiences in childhood. “When I was 13 years old, I got hurt on a railroad track. I was in the children’s hospital for 13 months, and the doctors said I’d never walk and that I’d be in a wheelchair the rest of my life,” said Plummer.
“But I started walking. I went through three wars and two mothers-in-law,” he joked. “It just means an awful lot to me, to help and see people get back on their feet.” As DAV enters 2020 and looks to celebrate its centennial anniversary, it’s members like Plummer—a veteran of the Army Air Corps and Air Force who belongs to DAV Chapter 71 in West Union, Ohio—who are helping to define the legacy of the organization and set the bar for its future.
While Plummer has boxes of plaques, awards and certificates he’s amassed over time, his efforts are all for the veterans.
“Harlan has overcome health and family obstacles over the years, but always comes back to the mission he loves,” said DAV National Commander Butch Whitehead. “Volunteers like Harlan are truly the heart of DAV” ■
We need your help to locate San Diego County World War II and Korea War Veterans for our upcoming 2020 trips.
We want to honor them by taking them on a 3-day trip to Washington, D.C. to visit the memorials built for their service and sacrifice.
Since 2010, Honor Flight San Diego has taken over 1,400 veterans on this trip. Due to generous donors, the trip is no cost to the veteran.
“It was the best weekend of my life!” - WWII Veteran For more information, please call: (800) 655-6997 or email: info@honorflightsandiego.org www.honorflightsandiego.org
By Andre B. Sobocinski Bureau of Medicine & Surgery
The Navy hospital ships USNS Mercy and USNS Comfort are deploying to New York and Los Angeles to serve as referral centers for non-COVID-19 patients during the global pandemic.
As the longest-serving hospital ships in continuous operation in U.S. history, the Mercy and the Comfort have long captured the public’s imagination due to their vast medical capabilities as floating hospitals.
But in the storied history of the Navy’s hospital ships, stateside deployments during global pandemics remain uncharted waters.
The USS Comfort serves as an ambulance ship, around 1918.
Hospital ships have played pivotal roles in naval operations since the early days of the republic. During the Barbary Wars, Commodore Edward Preble ordered that the USS Intrepid be used as a hospital ship. The reconfiguration of this former bomb-ketch — a type of wooden ship that carried mortars as its primary armament — in 1803 marks the standard for almost all hospital ships used thereafter. To date, only the USS Relief was built from the keel up to serve as a hospital ship. All other ships — including the Mercy and the Comfort — were converted from other uses, whether as super tankers, troop transports or passenger liners.
Whether it was the USS Red Rover transporting patients up the Mississippi to Mound Island, Missouri, during the Civil War or the USS Solace taking wounded Marines from Iwo Jima to a Guam hospital, ships have long served in the capacity of ambulance ships.
48 WWW.HomelandMagazine.com / APRIL 2020 During the great influenza pandemic of 1918, the Comfort and the Mercy were each briefly stationed in New York, where they took care of overflow patients from the 3rd Naval District before returning to the fleet and sailing across the Atlantic Ocean. Along with the USS Solace, these ships ferried thousands of wounded and sick — including some with virulent cases of the flu — back to stateside facilities.
Throughout the 19th and early 20th centuries, a host of Navy ships was sent around the country to serve as “station hospitals” for burgeoning naval bases.
From the 1850s until the early 1860s, the supply ships USS Warren and USS Independence operated at Mare Island, California, until shore facilities were constructed. Decades later, the Navy employed the former gunboat USS Nipsic at the Puget Sound Navy Yard, Washington, to serve as a predecessor to Naval Hospital Bremerton (Puget Sound). And from 1953 until 1957, the hospital ship USS Haven served as a station hospital at Long Beach, California, supporting medical activities in the 11th Naval District.
Humanitarian assistance and disaster response operations have long been the clarion call for hospital ships. In March 1933 — following the devastating earthquake that hit Long Beach — the USS Relief sent teams of physicians and hospital corpsmen ashore to help treat casualties. Following the Loma Prieta earthquake in October 1989, the USNS Mercy — then moored in Oakland, California — provided food and shelter for hundreds of disaster victims.
Since 2001, USNS Comfort and USNS Mercy have taken part in some 19 humanitarian assistance and disaster response missions — such as U.S. Southern Command’s Continuing Promise medical exercise series and Operation Unified Assistance, the military response
The Comfort was sent to New York City following the attacks on Sept. 11, 2001. Following Hurricane Katrina in 2005, it deployed to the Gulf Coast, where it treated 1,258 patients at Pascagoula, Mississippi and New Orleans.
Originally envisioned as a floating trauma hospital for the victims of the twin towers’ collapse after the 9/11 attacks, the ship’s mission changed when it became clear there were not the large numbers of injured expected. Vice Adm. (Dr.) Michael Cowan, Navy surgeon general in 2001, recalled that New York’s Emergency Management Office stated the city was being overwhelmed by the needs of the displaced and relief workers.
“The island didn’t have facilities to support the firemen and rescuers and police digging through the rubble and sleeping on the hood of their engines,” Cowan said. “They were becoming dirty, going without water as they worked in harsh environments.” The city requested that the Comfort provide humanitarian services while docked close to the site.
From Sept. 14 to Oct. 1, the Comfort provided hot meals, showers, beds and clean clothes to about 1,000 relief workers a day from its temporary home at Pier 92 in Manhattan.
When commissioned on Dec. 28, 1920, the USS Relief could boast the same amenities as the most modern hospitals at the time: large corridors and elevators for transporting patients and fully equipped surgical operating rooms, wards, galleys, pantries, wash rooms, laboratories and dispensaries, as well as a sterilizing/disinfecting room, all with tiled flooring.
The Mercy and the Comfort are no different in this regard and are comparable to some of the largest trauma hospitals in the United States. Each ship has 12 fully equipped operating rooms, a bed capacity of 1,000, and digital radiological services, medical laboratories, full-serve pharmacies, blood banks, medical equipment repair shops, prosthetics and physical therapy.
Each emblazoned with nine red crosses and stretching 894 feet in length — the size of three football fields — the Mercy and Comfort remain powerful symbols of medical care and hope during the darkest times.
