San Diego Serves as a Port in Vietnam Veterans’ Storm

Buddy Love served two tours of duty in Vietnam, he says, before military doctors decided he was schizophrenic and discharged him from the Marines in 1971--without a disability pension.

Today he is broke, unemployed and living at The Landing Zone, a downtown San Diego shelter for homeless Vietnam veterans. But he is better off now than he was a year ago, when he lived in the woods of Balboa Park.

San Diego anthropologist Bruce Harris believes there are more than 1,700 other homeless veterans in San Diego County. More than 1,200 of them are Vietnam veterans, a higher percentage, he says, than any other major city in the United States.

Harris, who has a doctorate from UC San Diego and directs the Downtown Transient Center, was hired by the city to conduct a survey of the homeless. The results, released in May, revealed that 44% of the estimated 4,000 homeless in San Diego County are veterans, more than 75% of them homeless veterans who served in Vietnam.

Dan Emer, regional director of the Veterans Administration, said that although there are many homeless Vietnam veterans in San Diego County, he believes the figures in the Harris report are too high. He did say, however, that the percentage of homeless Vietnam veterans in San Diego probably is higher than in other cities in the state.

Officials who work closely with the homeless suggest the city’s large number of homeless Vietnam veterans is directly related to the role California military ports played during the war. San Diego and San Francisco were two major ports of entry during the war, they say. And because the veteran found favorable conditions in California, many returned when times got tough.

Of the homeless veterans in San Francisco and Los Angeles, about 20% are Vietnam veterans, according to Harris.

Many veterans told Harris they chose San Diego because of the weather--and if a person must be homeless, it is better to be homeless in San Diego.

The question that has not been fully answered, he said, is why there are more homeless veterans from the Vietnam War than from other wars.

One answer may be that they had more trouble adjusting to society when they returned, he said. Other veterans came home to marching bands and parades, while the Vietnam veterans came home to a country divided by civil strife and war protests. Everyone just wanted to forget about the war--everyone but the soldiers.

Love, 43, said he could not forget the war and even today has a recurring nightmare about Vietnam.

The dream is always the same, he said. He is being chased by Vietnamese soldiers through a jungle when he comes to a cliff with a stream at the bottom. He knows that if he gets across the stream he will be safe, but each time he jumps, the dream shifts into slow motion, the soldiers chasing him fire their rifles, and he wakes up afraid.

Love said he is an alcoholic and drug abuser. He checked into The Landing Zone to take advantage of its program to help Vietnam veterans lose their chemical dependencies. He said the chemical dependency is what prevents him from holding a meaningful job. Just last week he marked the 60th day he has gone without alcohol, he said.

Love began drinking heavily and taking drugs while serving as a member of the Army’s Special Forces, he said; his fears of war were more than matched by the frustrations he faced when he was first released in 1963. He said he could not understand why he had fought and why the Americans for whom he fought were protesting the war.

“We were told we would understand what we went through when it was all over, but I never understood,” he said. “I saw the people (protesting) and what they thought of the war. Ethically, they were right.”

Love said the assassination of President John Kennedy also was devastating for him because he admired the President.

“We (Vietnam soldiers) were his fair-haired boys. I saw a picture of the Lincoln Memorial in the newspaper when Kennedy was killed, and Lincoln was crying,” Love said, placing his face in his hands. “Boy, I cried. I cried so hard.”

Unable to adjust to life on the streets, Love said, he joined the Marines in 1969 and volunteered to go back to Vietnam. He was then hospitalized for a mental disorder. But the problems were still there when doctors released him in 1971.

“They put a uniform on me and taught me how to kill people,” he said. “Then all of a sudden they put me on a plane and sent me home and said, ‘Be normal.’ My family did not want to be around me when I came back. I was a different person. They thought I was crazy.

“People would always say to me, ‘You’re crazy,’ and I’d say, ‘You’re right, and I’ve got papers in Washington to prove it.’ ”

An aide to Councilman Ed Struiksma, who asked that he not be identified, said he believes the Vietnam veterans had more trouble readjusting to society because the soldiers were younger and more immature than soldiers from other wars.

The average soldier’s age in World War II was 26, he said. In Vietnam, the average soldier was about 19 and not well-educated.

Today these uneducated, homeless Vietnam veterans are not aware of what they are entitled to, he said, and the Veterans Administration is not providing as much assistance as it might. Many homeless veterans are getting nothing because military doctors say their problems are not war-related, he said.

A Veterans Administration official suggested that some of the homeless veterans in San Diego may not be getting federal assistance because they may have been dishonorably discharged.

Harris’ survey found that most Vietnam veterans are receiving no military pensions or benefits.

Dave Mason, a Vietnam veteran who said he is 30% disabled, gets $185 a month. His rent at The Landing Zone is $200 a month. He said that although he owes money to the shelter, those operating it have allowed him to stay.

Mason said he was 17 when he volunteered for the Army in 1968. He had dropped out of school the previous year and was unable to find work because employers were afraid he would be drafted.

Like Love, Mason said he is an alcoholic, but military doctors told him he also suffers from post-traumatic stress disorders. In addition to having nightmares, he has bouts with depression, anxiety, chest pains, high blood pressure and shortness of breath.

Unlike Love, Mason says his doctors concluded that his problems are directly related to his service in Vietnam.

Struiksma’s aide said many Vietnam veterans in San Diego who should be getting money from the Veterans Administration instead are being assisted by the city and county.

“Let’s plug some of these people that are eligible into the federal system, and that will relieve some of the stress on the local systems,” he said.

Most of the veterans are employable and would work if jobs were created for them, he said.

There are three bills in Sacramento that, if passed, would provide more state money to aid homeless veterans.

One bill, introduced by Sen. William A. Craven (R-Oceanside) would require that each county in California hire a veteran service officer. The officer would work primarily with helping homeless veterans get federal and local assistance.

Another bill would provide money for an assistant to aid veterans in each county. The assistant would work directly under the county veteran service officer and would help homeless veterans get job training.

The third bill, sponsored by Assemblymen Gray Davis, (D-Sherman Oaks), and Steve Peace, (D-Chula Vista), would provide $10 million for transitional housing for homeless veterans in San Diego, Los Angeles and San Francisco. The housing would be provided for six to 18 months while the veterans received job training or rehabilitation.

Meanwhile, most homeless veterans in San Diego must find assistance wherever they can. The Landing Zone, one of several in San Diego, operates a 46-bed shelter on 11th Street. About 17 Vietnam veterans stay at the shelter, said Robert Van Keuren, career development specialist at the shelter.

One of the shelter’s primary goals is to make the veterans aware of benefits they are entitled to, Van Keuren said. They also try to break the veterans of chemical dependency and find meaningful jobs for them.