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Transcript

Veterans Beyond the Battlefield: The Untold Stories · When Life Gives You Lemons

• 0:00
  Kevin: Welcome to our podcast.
• 0:02
  Kevin: When life gives you lemons, I'm Kevin and I'm Palmy.
• 0:08
  Palmi: We consider ourselves disability advocates and intend to spotlight some disability issues and things we find interesting that we frequently encounter when we're out and about.
• 0:18
  Palmi: Also, some history on disability that we find interesting.
• 0:23
  Palmi: Well, welcome back, kevin.
• 0:24
  Palmi: This is our third year, first episode.
• 0:28
  Kevin: Can you believe it's been three years Palmi?
• 0:30
  Kevin: .
• 0:31
  Palmi: I can.
• 0:31
  Palmi: What's our first episode?
• 0:34
  Kevin: We're going to talk about the buzzword we talked in season one.
• 0:39
  Kevin: Wasn't it about the VA?
• 0:41
  Kevin: Was that in season two?
• 0:44
  Kevin: I'm not sure, but this is how the VA came about.
• 0:51
  Kevin: The.
• 0:51
  Palmi: Veterans Administration.
• 0:52
  Palmi: Okay, so let's get some background first.
• 0:56
  Kevin: Okay.
• 0:56
  Palmi: So the very first war that America was ever involved in was the Revolutionary War.
• 1:02
  Kevin: Right, right, no-transcript.
• 1:41
  Palmi: They basically went out on their own and created a fund for the veterans at the Revolutionary War.
• 1:46
  Palmi: So this was the first time ever that it was an all-voluntary army of citizens that fought a war.
• 1:47
  Palmi: So this was the first time ever that it was an all-voluntary army of citizens that fought a war anywhere Correct.
• 1:51
  Palmi: And so there was never I mean before that royalty had offered benefits to the people that had fought in the war prior to this and they were taken care of based by the royalty or whoever was the ruler of the country that they fought for.
• 2:10
  Kevin: Right.
• 2:10
  Kevin: And because America didn't have that, we did not have that for our veterans that had fought those wars, that's correct, and you also have to bear in mind that at the very beginning of the Revolutionary War the country was very divided.
• 2:30
  Kevin: In their opinion, the majority probably not very much wanted to separate from England and the rest just didn't really care.
• 2:43
  Palmi: So these were.
• 2:44
  Palmi: It was an army of free after the war.
• 2:47
  Kevin: it was an army of free men Right that was once the war was over
• 3:04
  Palmi: So most men were discharged in good health and received nothing as far except for kudos for fighting.
• 3:12
  Palmi: Generals were celebrated as heroes, but ordinary soldiers were rarely honored in the first decade after the war.
• 3:24
  Palmi: It took decades for Americans to gradually realize that the common soldier of the Revolutionary War were heroes also, and those who lived to be old men eventually honored as veterans of the Revolutionary War.
• 3:38
  Palmi: But it took a long time for that to happen, and in 1818, congress decided to award pensions to the veterans only because several of them were in financial need.
• 3:50
  Palmi: And in 1832, congress voted to extend the pension to nearly all the surviving soldiers and sailors of the revolution.
• 4:00
  Palmi: These were the first pensions, so this would be kind of the first um the first site that we saw of the veterans administration.
• 4:09
  Kevin: but it wasn't called that right.
• 4:11
  Kevin: It wasn't uh formalized by congress or anything it was more, in a way, okay.
• 4:20
  Kevin: You have to understand that getting wounded in wartime, basically in earlier times, has gone from where it is now to like getting shot in the shoulder, is not that big a deal.
• 4:39
  Palmi: Typically, you didn't survive.
• 4:41
  Kevin: Typically people couldn't survive a lot more severe wounds than they could have back then.
• 4:48
  Kevin: But if you got wounded by anything really, you know, when they had muskets and mouth loaders and all that they weren't really known for their antiseptic care of the wounded Right.
• 5:07
  Kevin: So if you were treated, even if you made it to medical attention, you're pretty much going to suffer lasting repercussions of having been shot Right.
• 5:25
  Kevin: And if you survived like a cannonball, it was all basically charity.
• 5:36
  Kevin: They would set you up with saving your life, but you're going to be a beggar for the rest of your life.
• 5:44
  Palmi: Right, okay, so going forward.
• 5:47
  Palmi: Americans First, veterans bring together paintings, artifacts, prints, documents to address the post-war experience of men who won the Revolutionary War not the famous generals and leading officers whose names appeared in the history of the war, but rather the junior.
• 6:10
  Palmi: In other words, they would sell things in order to pay for these people's benefits.
• 6:16
  Palmi: There was nothing coming directly from the government.
• 6:19
  Palmi: This was just charity, like you said.
• 6:23
  Kevin: Right.
• 6:24
  Palmi: So let's move on to the Civil War.
• 6:25
  Palmi: After the American Revolutionary War, federal government paid pensions to those veterans who had service-related injuries, and the government extended this pension service in 1818 to include any veterans who needed assistance, making clear that the pensions were rewards for service, not charity.
• 6:44
  Palmi: So there was a big.
• 6:45
  Palmi: They didn't want, the soldiers did not want to feel like they were receiving charity.
• 6:50
  Palmi: The soldiers did not want to feel like they were receiving charity.
• 6:51
  Palmi: In 1833, as a result of the heightened demand because of the Civil War service injuries, congress passed the General Pension Law in 1862 to make benefits available to civil rights veterans who had service-related injuries and or diseases against the Union in the Civil War.
• 7:15
  Palmi: And in 1884, membership at the National Home Branch was expanded again to include the honorably discharged soldiers and sailors who could not support themselves due to disability.
• 7:31
  Palmi: The disability did not have to be a service-related injury and in 1900, the Spanish-American War veteran home became eligible.
• 7:42
  Palmi: Despite these increases in membership, the branches continued to see decline in the population as aging Civil War veterans died.
• 7:53
  Palmi: Confederate veterans were never allowed at the National Home branches, but several southern states established similar homes which were funded and managed by either state governments or private organizations.
• 8:09
  Palmi: These homes were closed by the 1950s, when the last Civil War veterans died.
• 8:16
  Palmi: African American soldiers were allowed membership at the national home branches, which established a policy of racial equality.
• 8:25
  Palmi: In the decades following the Civil War, the level of equality became less and less.
• 8:31
  Palmi: While African Americans were at the same facilities and received the same benefits, they were segregated in the facility and slept in separate barracks and ate at different tables.
• 8:45
  Palmi: Now, going on to World War I, it drastically increased the population at the national home branches, with the new population had different needs.
• 8:56
  Palmi: World War I veterans were primarily younger men who needed short-term medical care and help with psychological problems.
• 9:05
  Palmi: After World War I, women veterans entered the National Home branches in lower numbers.
• 9:17
  Kevin: The problem with World War I is, up until immediately after World War I we were in as a country.
• 9:29
  Kevin: We were in the period known as the Great Depression, which I believe was made official in 1929 when the stock market crashed.
• 9:42
  Kevin: For World War I and some of the other smaller wars, like the Spanish-American War, they guaranteed the people enlisting in the Army a bonus so that they could come away for more time, take the bonus, more time, take the bonus and not have to rush into finding a job or being jobless for months on end while everybody else back home is basically in an economy where they're struggling but managing to get by.
• 10:32
  Palmi: The Southern Branch was transformed into a medical hospital during World War I and the influx of the.
• 10:39
  Palmi: When President Hoover signed the Executive Order 5398 on July 21, 1930 to create the Veterans Administration, the VA, the order abolished the National Home for Disabled Volunteered Soldiers and its board of members and at that time the National Home branches were reorganized as the Bureau of National Homes within the VA and in 1989, the Veterans Administration was elevated to a cabinet status and renamed the Department of Veterans Affairs.
• 11:16
  Palmi: The transition from permanent homes to short-term medical care is reflected in the agricultural change at the national home branches after the creation of the Veterans Administration Building and other branches.
• 11:32
  Palmi: So let's get into.
• 11:34
  Palmi: We were talking about the Bonus War, so Hoover just established the VA.
• 11:45
  Kevin: Okay, like I said, it was when their troops came back from World War I in Europe.
• 11:54
  Kevin: They came back to a very, very dire situation.
• 12:01
  Kevin: They found out they could not provide for their families in war.
• 12:07
  Kevin: It was just really a rough time for everybody to find work, employment, wages it just didn't cut.
• 12:19
  Kevin: They had a promise of bonuses, but they wouldn't be effective until 1945, I believe, 1945, I believe.
• 12:33
  Kevin: And so the bonus war was actually the troops that served in World War.
• 12:37
  Kevin: They went hwent to Washington DC led by their former commanders, and they wanted a meeting where they could negotiate the bonus promises they had into something they could use right now or soon to be, not years in the future.
• 13:01
  Kevin: They needed a way to provide for their families.
• 13:06
  Kevin: In fact, a lot of the veterans brought their families with them so they could actually be together during this period.
• 13:21
  Kevin: Eventually, some of the officers who would become famous in the next World War, such as Patton MacArthur, etc.
• 13:35
  Kevin: Would, because they were serving the Army at their president.
• 13:46
  Kevin: They basically drove the bonus-seeking veterans out of Washington DC.
• 13:57
  Kevin: They did this primarily by the use of displaying overwhelming force.
• 14:06
  Kevin: They destroyed the She that the veterans built and they shot tear gas into the crowds.
• 14:17
  Kevin: Now imagine being a veteran of World War I, where there was major chaos, where there was like major chaos, major chemical warfare going on, on both sides and all of a sudden you're immersed into a situation where they're burning your shelters you built so you have smoke.
• 14:43
  Kevin: They're firing tear gas into the crowds that just provides more smoke, and you used to see a smoky battlefield and that was like it wasn't like tear gas, it was like this stuff is going to kill you.
• 15:06
  Kevin: So, in those days they called this fear shell shock.
• 15:14
  Kevin: sheIt shockIt be generated by such sights, sounds and smells.
• 15:36
  Palmi: Later on it would become known as PTSD, but their trauma from wartime spilling over into everyday conditions.
• 15:39
  Palmi: So, according to the reports, in 1932, thousands of veterans from World War III descended on Washington DC to demand the money that they had been promised by the federal government.
• 15:49
  Kevin: From World War dear.
• 15:51
  Palmi: Oh, did I say three.
• 15:53
  Kevin: Yes, you did.
• 15:57
  Palmi: Just as I said that I realized.
• 15:57
  Palmi: I said that the government's solution to this was a mobilized cavalry, infantry and armored units commanded by Douglas MacArthur, to remove them Among the agencies.
• 16:10
  Palmi: The VA subs was the.
• 16:13
  Palmi: The reason that they were having so much trouble is that there was, after World War I, there was an increase of people that were claiming benefits rose from 54,000 claims to over 96,000 claims in less than one month, and so there was more than four-fold increase in just one year of people that were claiming for benefits.
• 16:51
  Palmi: So they were overrun.
• 16:53
  Palmi: They didn't have enough employees to handle any of it.
• 16:56
  Palmi: They weren't expecting all of this and so they just it was woefully unprepared for what they were offering, so they beefed up their employees.
• 17:08
  Palmi: They forced the, the, the bonus war participants, out of Washington DC and eventually, you know, um got in order and got it under under control and um, but I imagine there was a lot of hate, hate, hate and.
• 17:25
  Palmi: But I imagine there was a lot of hate over that and just disgust and, like you said, pete made things a lot worse than it had to be.
• 17:45
  Kevin: On a more humorous note, I heard a story because it was pretty much a time of campaigning for the presidency, and the president during the Bonus War was Herbert Hoover, who was not very popular, and his opponent was Franklin Delano Roosevelt.
• 17:59
  Kevin: And when Herbert Hoover had the Army disperse the veterans, FDR fdr exclaimed well, I've won the election then because he didn't see any way that his opponent would be able to spin this as worthy of a president or a commander in .
• 18:25
  Kevin: chief
• 18:30
  Kevin: That's why we have Franklin Delano Roosevelt as president.
• 18:35
  Palmi: You mean the incumbent?
• 18:37
  Palmi: He was the incumbent.
• 18:39
  Kevin: It's hard to spin that.
• 18:40
  Palmi: That's pretty despicable to be cheating out your veterans and then to attack them.
• 18:50
  Kevin: Yep.
• 18:51
  Palmi: I imagine they weren't getting any response back to what they were asking for for help, and so you know they felt like they had to take action.
• 19:15
  Kevin: So it was my understanding that the veterans dispersed once the Army was committed to disband them.
• 19:17
  Kevin: But the leaders actually went back and had a meeting with congressional leaders.
• 19:24
  Kevin: Meeting with congressional leaders resolved the bonus issue and the bonuses were dispersed before 1945.
• 19:36
  Palmi: Before there were too many yeah dispersed in a more timely manner.
• 19:43
  Kevin: I believe almost immediately.
• 19:45
  Kevin: I believe almost immediately.
• 19:48
  Kevin: You have to bear in mind that the bonuses are in 1930s dollars, so they wouldn't have been like the life-changing amounts that we hear about now.
• 20:09
  Palmi: It would have been like a few thousand here a few there.
• 20:11
  Kevin: You know every penny counted back then.
• 20:12
  Kevin: Back then, during the depression, the important thing was to get cash for land, for plans you have with your family, for going back into business, for adapting yourself to the environment, for retraining all that stuff that you have to do to sleep.
• 20:35
  Kevin: You know these folks are behind in the times.
• 20:40
  Kevin: They have to adapt to the economy of the day.
• 20:45
  Kevin: They were really not thinking about that during the war.
• 20:51
  Kevin: They were busy basically surviving.
• 20:54
  Palmi: Defending us?
• 20:55
  Palmi: Yeah, all right, what?
• 20:59
  Palmi: Covers everything that we had for the episode, or do you have anything else?
• 21:06
  Kevin: Everything that we had for the episode, or do you have anything else?
• 21:09
  Kevin: No-transcript.
• 21:19
  Palmi: By any means.
• 21:20
  Kevin: It's a darn sight better than the conditions they had to face.
• 21:26
  Palmi: Yep.
• 21:28
  Kevin: The problem I think we have nowadays is you have to be aware of the programs the VA has.
• 21:36
  Kevin: They're pretty stingy on giving out the information of what you can and can't apply for.
• 21:44
  Kevin: They're also stingy, or famous, for having something for a limited time and nobody knows about it.
• 21:56
  Kevin: Changing the rules.
• 21:57
  Kevin: Yeah they change the rules of who to apply for before a word gets out.
• 22:04
  Palmi: It was something you're eligible for Right.
• 22:07
  Palmi: You got to be in the know Right.
• 22:10
  Palmi: You got to search it out to be able to take advantage of it.
• 22:15
  Palmi: I'll let you know that I have a perfect regard also with theVA VA.
• 22:19
  Kevin: A perfect regard also with theVA VA.
• 22:22
  Kevin: They denied every claim except one.
• 22:26
  Kevin: We got with a lot of help to get me into the disabled category.
• 22:34
  Palmi: Yeah.
• 22:37
  Kevin: All right, but I've been disproved for I'm getting my home adaptation grant.
• 22:46
  Kevin: I've been disproved for the auto grant.
• 22:51
  Kevin: I've been disproved for the caregiver grant you name it.
• 22:57
  Kevin: I just I'm a disabled guy who gets everything denied and I'm not really looking for costly things like, let's say, I prove my disability claim.
• 23:15
  Kevin: I haven't really gone back.
• 23:18
  Kevin: It's been almost 25 years, I guess.
• 23:20
  Kevin: More , like educational or equipment, I still apply for those things.
• 23:41
  Palmi: Being disabled is not cheap.
• 23:43
  Kevin: No, is not cheap, no, it's not.
• 23:46
  Palmi: We talked about the disability.
• 23:49
  Kevin: Of charges.
• 23:50
  Kevin: Yeah, that was definitely last year.
• 23:52
  Kevin: Yeah, last season.
• 23:53
  Palmi: All right.
• 23:54
  Palmi: Well, I don't know what we're going to do next, but I think it might be an interview.
• 23:59
  Kevin: Hopefully yes.
• 24:00
  Palmi: Okay, well, we will see you next time.
• 24:04
  Kevin: I'll see you next time.