Veterans centers at a crossroads in ML

Hope for new digs mixes with restlessness due to lack of funds

Due to lack of funding in some cases, and lack of customers in others, veteran service centers in the area are hoping to relocate in order to stay in business.

The American Legion post and the Veterans Service Center are among the places that have encountered a myriad of problems in their desire to keep servicing the war veterans who live in Moses Lake and surrounding cities.

Doug Edwards, the supervisor of the club housed at the American Legion on Broadway Avenue, said that given that the Legion does not receive state money, its main source of income are the veterans who come in, a number that Legion employees say has been dropping.

Evie Sauber, a bartender at the American Legion said this is due to people not caring anymore about the people who fought for America.

Carl Smith, an officer at the Legion spoke of other reasons that have led to putting the building up for sale.

"The building is not quite big enough," he said. "It's old and it needs a lot of (care) which we can't afford."

Smith added "We own this building, but we can't stay here. It will bankrupt us."

The sight of bare buildings alongside Broadway Avenue brings to Smith's mind the idea that perhaps the selling and closing of facilities is not just a veterans' problem, as much as it is a financial problem. "People just can't afford it," he said.

In comparison, Smith said that other veterans' organizations receive state funding, such as the Veterans Service Center on Fourth Avenue. "They claim to have no money," Smith said," but they get the same amount every year."

Ben Hepner, a representative of the Vietnam Veterans of America at the Veterans Service Center said that Grant County commissioners are going to try find the Veterans Service Center another place.

"They said they would," he said. "They have to. If they wouldn't give us a place, we would have to close, period."

The center, which is set to close its current offices on May 31, was described by Hepner as a unit that helps veterans file health insurance claims.

"It would be a real loss to the community," Hepner said. "Many veterans would not be served if we closed."

Smith decried such closing of veterans centers and hospitals in places like Moses Lake and Walla Walla, saying that the veterans fighting the war in Iraq are going to need places like these, and the bigger cities such as Spokane will not be able to handle the demand. "We cannot afford to close Walla Walla Veterans Medical Center," he said.

The situation, he said, is different for eastern Washington veterans than for those on the west side of the state.

"American Lake Hospital in Tacoma is shutting down and a hospital in Vancouver (Wash.) is shutting down," he said. "But for those places, Portland is nearby, and Seattle is nearby, and they can handle it.

"Walla Walla serves three states: west Idaho, south Washington and north Oregon. Where are they going to put (the veterans) when they come back?"

Smith said that another reason for the closing of these centers is an age gap between veterans of the Korean conflict and the veterans of the Vietnam war.

"The average Vietnam veteran is in his early to mid 50's," he said. "While most of the Korean and WWII veterans are starting to die off. It is not our time yet" to need these facilities at a large scale.

As the Vietnam veterans begin to age, Smith predicted, there will be a greater need for these types of hospitals and service centers.

The concern caused by the possible closing of the hospital in Walla Walla has reached the U.S. Congress, as Sen. Patty Murray wrote Veterans Affairs Secretary Anthony Principi, opposing the measure.

"Closing this facility will put accessible care out of the reach of the region's veterans including the new generation of combat veterans returning home from Iraq and Afghanistan," Murray wrote. "It is clear that private facilities do not have the capacity to absorb the additional patient load."