May 2008
I was in the Army Reserve from 1967 to 1973. I began in Military Intelligence (M.I.), but through a series of ironic twists that are now, in retrospect, almost comical, I ended up as the adjutant for the 828th Station Hospital in California. Because the M.I. school that I was supposed to attend was full, I was sent instead to a clerk-typist school. Later, at the station hospital, where I was a clerk-typist, the adjutant was reassigned. When they discovered that they didn’t have anyone qualified to fill the slot, I was promoted to his position because I had a college degree. My degree was in agriculture with some veterinary training thrown in, which apparently was good enough for the Army to put me in charge of the administration of a hospital.
I was lucky, because the 828th was originally a M.A.S.H. unit, but by the time I arrived, it was re-designated as a station hospital. Station hospitals usually don’t get deployed to the front lines as do M.A.S.H. units, so I never ended up in Vietnam. However, I’ve met many people who did.
I’ve always considered it a blessing that fate spared me from going into combat. Nobody comes out of a war unchanged. Some people are strengthened by it; others are destroyed. At Poverello, we’ve seen a lot of homeless vets over the years, many of them traumatized by their war experiences.
Founder Mike McGarvin has a warm place in his heart for homeless vets. Mike was an Army cook who, like me, didn’t end up in combat. In his case it was timing: the Vietnam War hadn’t heated up yet when he was doing his stint. He knew plenty of people in the sixties who were drafted, many of whom went to war and never made it home.
Mike’s deep sympathy for the vet on the street led him to set up our P.O.W./M.I.A. table a few years ago, which we’ve mentioned in previously in our newsletter. It honors all prisoners of war and those missing in action, and Mike watches over it like a hawk. Anyone who steals anything from the table or messes with it in any way has a steep price to pay. Homeless veterans really appreciate this small homage paid to their brothers who suffered as prisoners or who were probably killed but never found.
For many years we also hosted Operation Stand Down, a weekend of intensive services for veterans, and provided office space to Veterans Crisis, a nonprofit organization serving homeless vets. This was another nod to show support for these special folks that served.
I’ve heard some statistics that indicate up to twenty-five percent of the homeless are veterans. I’m not sure that’s a percentage that anyone can prove, because it’s hard to count a population that doesn’t have addresses or phones. From our experience, though, there certainly seem to be a lot of veterans on the streets. Whether wartime emotional scars landed them there, or other problems that began before they went into the military, we seldom ever know. Self-reporting by the homeless is notoriously unreliable. However, sorting out the combat vets from those who never saw the front lines would be about as useful to us as separating flyspecks from pepper. When someone’s on the streets, he needs help, no matter how he got there.
Memorial Day honors those who have fallen defending the country, but at Poverello, we extend that honor to all veterans, both dead and living. Here on F Street, it’s a good day to remember that some of those homeless guys might be here because of the aftereffects of war. In that context, we are very much in debt to some of the shabby-looking men on the corner. The dirty man with three days’ stubble may appear disreputable, but sometimes looks can deceive. For all we know, he might have once been a proud soldier who threw himself into the breach for our sakes.
Jim Connell,
Executive Director
info@poverellohouse.org