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Veterans For Peace: Celebrating 25 Years

Phone card gallery - 2007

Phone Card Visit 2007

Los Angeles, CA 

On December 21, 2007 eight members of Veterans For Peace, Los Angeles Chapter 7, met at the VA West Los Angeles Hospital to hand out long distance calling cards to veterans. In attendance were also two members from Iraq Veterans Against the War.  We collaborated with members of Veterans of Foreign Wars who were also there to hand out gifts.  The two groups worked together in small pods of four to visit the four floors of the main hospital.  VFW makes monthly visitations, which is an idea that VFP-LA wants to consider for the future. We wondered where vets from Iraq were as most of the veterans were older, from wars prior to Iraq.  All of the vets we did talk to really appreciated the visit as much as the gifts they received.  Our members spent time listening to the vet's stories, as time permitted, and are inspired to continue to make more visitations in the future.  It was especially moving to be part of an event that reached out to other veterans. Some of our vets were moved to tears as they left the hospital rooms.  The hospital staff was very gracious and kept some of the calling cards for those vets in surgery at the time of our visit.  We want to thank Credo and Veteran's For Peace National for organizing the donations and making the calling cards available for us to hand out.  We look forward to being part of next year's distribution.

Veteran's For Peace, Los Angeles Chapter 7
VFP Calling Card Coordinator Kathleen Hernandez

los angeles - vfp members

vfp and vfw members in los angeles

Fargo, ND

Bob Jansen, Ron Saeger and David Givers, VFP members and organizers of the newly forming Red River Valley (MN-ND) VFP chapter, met and visited with hospitalized Vets at the Fargo VA Hospital on Friday, December 21, to distribute the free Credo phone cards.

The oldest combat vet in eastern North Dakota, who is 85, is receiving care after recently being designated 60% disabled because of his service as a Marine. He fought through Guadalcanal (1942-43). We were told this by his son who was also visiting at the same time. 

The son seemed visibly moved that veterans like us would come to the hospital to provide solidarity with hospiltalized vets in their time of need. He said his father is now totally deaf. However, the old man did become animated. He recognized we were talking about his service in W.W.II. He propped himself up in bed and said it was hard, tough, "lots of fighting." 

 He also  served with Merrill's Marauders, which fought in China, Burma, India, Feb-August,1944, interdicting Japanese supply and communications lines.

He was an under-age enlistee at the age of 17.  He went with his father to the recruiting station and the recruiter asked his age. He said 18. The recruiter sized him up and said, "Take a walk around the block and think about how old you are and come back with the right answer." He came back was asked the same question. He gave the same again and was inducted. The recruiter had given  him a second chance to not enlist. Hell of a long cry from what recruiters are doing today.

We met a vet who was involved in the formation of (one of the first) Viet Nam Veterans Against the War Chapter (in his living room/his former wife's?) in Hopkins, MN in the 1960s. He was expressively the only antiwar person of the day. Each time we entered a room, we always first introduced ourselves as members of Veterans for Peace. When he heard VFP he launched right in to the stupidity of problem solving through war and violence. He said he walks the Red Road--as an American indian who overcame alcohol abuse-- and works to guide the young people who are quick to pick up a gun to settle perceived wrongs.

Everyone was glad to see us. The gift of phone cards was greatly appreciated and in many cases very highly needed. We gave two to each vet and in obvious cases where someone expected a long stay of several months we gave four cards.

After "making rounds," there were sufficient cards remaining to give  them to  the VA social service officers who work with homeless and suicidal vets who are not in the hospital. They were really glad to have this resource donated.

The people who gave the money provided a wonderful blessing. It was our honor to be their agents. 

San Diego, CA

Fellow Vets: A hardy group of SDVFPers visited the VA hospital today at UCSD and handed out 200 two-hour pre-paid phone cards and our chapter business cards to patients there. Our visit was part of a national effort sponsored by Veterans For Peace (St. Louis) and the CREDO phone company. Most of the veteran patients we met today were older and one was in hospice. Although we were not allowed to take pictures inside the hospital as planned, all patients seemed to appreciate the visit and many thanked us for our service as we thanked them for theirs.

san diego phone card visit

Sycracuse, NY

Broome County & North Country Chapters teamed up to distribute pre-paid phone cards to the Syracuse (NY) VA hospital patients.

broome county vfp

Erie, PA

On Friday 12/21/07 Jim Wise, Fred DeWalt and I, VFP members, distributed phone cards to veterans at the Erie PA Vets Hospital. The vets were in-patients on 3 floors. We were told that many in-patient vets were at Bingo. We went there and distributed cards. These vets were older and ill but capable of using the phone cards. They clapped as we left the room. We then went room to room.
 
The vast majority of the patients in rooms, in my opinion, were not capable of using the cards. They were all very old and ill. They could hardly hear or speak. Many of these appeared to not be lucid. Left over cards were distributed to residents of the Erie Soldiers and Sailors Home. They too were mostly older, in very ill health and not capable of using the cards. Jim Wise distributed cards last year and his experience was the same then. I suggest that next year, arrangements be made to distribute the cards to vets and Erie VA who come for out-patient treatment. My experience in helping vets get to the Erie VA is that the waiting areas are crowded with vets capable of using the cards. The number waiting may be 10 to 20. It may take 3 or 4 trips to get cards to a sizeable number of out-patients. A different vet could take each of the days. (Round trip from out area is about 60 miles.)  If this is acceptable, it may help to get an idea of the number of out-patients scheduled for a week or two before Christmas to get a count on the number of cards that could be distributed and the best days, times and waiting area locations to do it. Another possibility is to attempt to make arrangements for patient intake/admissions personnel to give each out-patient a card at registration?
Sandy Kelson

Fort Wayne, IN

Volunteers delivered 200 free telephone calling cards to Veterans at the Northeast Indiana VA Hospital on Friday, Dec. 21, 2007. The volunteers were warmly received, and the veterans with whom we had contact were very appreciative. Some wished to talk, others didn't but all thanked us for delivering the cards. The remaining undelivered cards were left with head of the volunteer dept. at VA. Thank you, and everyone who made this event possible. Dave Lambert

indiana phone card deliver

Houston, TX

We passed out the cards last night to veterans ranging from the current war in Iraq to a veteran featured in Tom Brokaw's book The Greatest Generation.  Along with the phone cards, our members passed out cards made up by the JROTC unit from a local high school (Lamar H.S.).

houston phone card visit

Philadelphia, PA

philly phone card visit

Delaware Valley Veterans For America, an Iraq Veteran (IVAW) led veterans organization, with 40 VFP members, once again gave out 2 Hour Pre-Paid "phone cards" to 3 different VA Hospitals. Wilmington, Delaware, Coatesville, Pa., and Philly VAMC were again the recipients of 800 phone cards. The biggest difference between our 2006 and 2007 gifts was 200 phone cards were set aside for Volunteer Services to distribute to OIF & OEF "outpatient" PTSD sufferers who have yet to receive any VA Compensation.

Gainesville, FL

Five of us (Bill, Dave, Steve, Denny and Julie) gave out 146 cards to every patient in the hospital and NH Christmas morning at the Titletown VA. It went very well. There 54 left over and I have a commitment from John Koch to give them out at the Lake City VA.

- Bill Warrick

St. Louis, MO

Members of the local Don Connor's chapter of Veteran For Peace met with staff from the National Office, as well as a local family to distribute 200 phone cards to the St. Louis VA hospital.

st. louis phone card visit

Miami, FL

On Thursday December 20th, members of VFP 032 and friends passed out all the telephone cards at the Miami VA Hospital. This year, there seemed to be more "isolation" patients than last year, but we were able to communicate with them and leave the cards with them, even if we had to wear protective gowns.

It's surprising in this day and age of cell phones how many vets use and accept our offer of long distance cards. Most are elderly, and too many are lonely and want to chat for a while. Several vets inquired about Veterans For Peace and we were, of course, prepared with application forms and local contact information. Current conflict vets expressed surprise that an organization with the name ‘Veterans for Peace' exists and we informed them of IVAW.

One of the highlights of the day was meeting with former Attorney General, Janet Reno. She acted very gracious and was a real lady.

On a personal note, this action was, for me, one of the most significant of the year. It was emotionally gut wrenching to see and meet mangled bodies of people who sacrificed themselves for service to the military and end up at a VA Hospital or Nursing Home. The few minutes of chit chat that we gave them brought smiles and expressions of gratitude that can only be appreciated when heard firsthand.

We done good, folks. Either this, or some other action needs to take place several times at the VA Hospitals to help us learn more about the VA Medical Centers and their plight in providing services to our fellow vets.