It May Be Taps for Stand Down : Veterans: Lack of funds could put an end to annual event to aid battalions of homeless and discouraged veterans in San Diego.

James Dennison came to square away his traffic tickets with a volunteer municipal judge and figure out what he needs to do to become a chemist.

Collis Rakestraw came for a blanket, a pair of eyeglasses and some skin medication.

Other homeless veterans just came to snooze in the shade of a Marine Corps tent, momentarily safe from the hazards of street life.

Launched by Robert Van Keuren of Vietnam Veterans of San Diego in 1988, the Stand Down brings more than a thousand volunteers together annually to provide services to homeless veterans, who make up nearly a third of this country’s homeless population, according to the U.S. Department of Labor. This year’s event is being held in a field behind San Diego High School.

But this year could be the last Stand Down for the lost battalions of troubled veterans. Lack of funds could bring an end to the annual events. And, Van Keuren acknowledges, five years of effort hasn’t necessarily brought change.

“Unfortunately it’s not different from last year. There hasn’t been any increase in the resources to assist these people,” said Van Keuren. “It’s not a Skinner box--where you walk in here homeless with a shopping cart, and three days later you walk out with a three-piece suit and a $40,000-a-year job. Three days won’t take care of decades of government neglect.”

But it can take care of a haircut, a warm blanket and a new pair of pants.

And it means a veteran can walk away enrolled in a drug or alcohol rehabilitation program, with a job tip, a few new friends and a little more pride.

“It gives us a chance to know our fellow compadres here,” said Rakestraw, a 57-year-old Korean War veteran who served in the Marines and has been homeless on and off for more than a year. “Before, I used to pass some of these guys on the street, and I didn’t even know they was in the military. Now I might lend them a hand.”

Rakestraw, a heavy man with a wild white beard whose broad grin reveals two distantly spaced teeth, came to the Stand Down in 1990. But then he was still getting odd jobs, in the shipyards, or gardening.

“I’m looking for more help this year,” said Rakestraw. “Now I’m getting old.”

Stand Down is a military term for the shift from a combat-ready to a lesser state of readiness.

The military ambience was hard to miss Friday, Day 1 of the three-day event. Black POW-MIA flags adorned the tent city--more than two dozen tents set up courtesy of the U.S. Marine Corps--and tent groups were assigned color codes to regulate activities.

This year, each tent was also assigned an FO--that’s “Forward Observer”--service providers from states like Alaska and Connecticut that are planning their own Stand Downs. Connecticut will hold a statewide event in the fall. San Francisco will hold its second in August, and Long Beach is holding one now, Van Keuren said.

Despite the buzz of optimism generated by the FOs, the future may be bleak for veterans, and the military itself is playing a role.

“There are veterans who are now getting out (of the service) in record numbers,” said Robin Higgins, deputy assistant secretary of veterans’ employment and training for the U.S. Department of Labor, who came to observe San Diego’s Stand Down this year. “There’s a huge downsizing. The military will be smaller, and many who expected to stay in as a career are now being told that they can’t do that.”

A 2-year-old federal program is designed to retrain these people for civilian life. But the shrinking military budget means people like Rakestraw aren’t getting any shipyard work anymore, and already the demographics of the Stand Down appear to be changing: Quite a few of this year’s vets were in grade school during the Vietnam era.

Dennison, 33, served in the Army 7th Infantry, but shortly after he returned from the Panama invasion, his drinking landed him on the streets. “I was a cab driver. And I was very lonely,” Dennison said, relaxing on the grass in tent Q to swap stories with two fellow vets, both recovering drug and alcohol abusers.

Despite the “Life’s a Beer” message on Dennison’s baseball cap, he hasn’t had a drink in 66 days. If the Stand Down gets one person into treatment, it will all have been worth it, he said.

But Higgins hopes she can help stretch the benefits a little further. Her commitment to veterans goes beyond the professional.

Higgins is the widow of Col. William R. Higgins, who was kidnaped in Lebanon in 1988 and later executed. A video depicting what his captors claimed was Higgins’ body was released in July, 1989, but it wasn’t until Dec. 23 of last year, Robin Higgins’ birthday, that his remains were flown to the United States and Higgins considered her ordeal over.

“In the past few years I’ve been through a pretty harrowing experience. And there were many times when I felt hopeless and abandoned,” Higgins said. “During that time, thousands of people came to my assistance. Most were in the military, veterans or families of veterans. Through this job I have the opportunity to repay the favor to all those people.

“What I went through was unique, and it was horrible,” said Higgins. “But I’m not the only one who’s been through a traumatic experience. Many of the people here have been through something pretty horrible.”

Jean Goodman is one of them. A Vietnam vet who served as a nurse with the U.S. Medical Corps for seven years, Goodman is one of Higgins’ special concerns: women veterans who have fallen through the cracks of the service network. Goodman didn’t even know she was eligible for medical benefits until she ended up homeless two months ago.

She is no longer homeless and came to the Stand Down mainly to “be with other veterans”--a group she is just now coming to identify with after 19 years of civilian life.

“‘China Beach’ came on, and I found myself crying, just profusely,” the 43-year-old nurse said of the popular television show. “Now I know I have post-traumatic stress disorder. I don’t know why I never knew that. You see 100 people die a day. That’s not normal,” she said.

“I had to decide who we were going to save and who was going to die. I’ve seen it all: no arms, no legs, no penis. Intestines outside. I can still hear the screams,” she said, stopping to control her tears.

Despite Higgins’ commitment to people like Goodman, the entire federal budget allocated to homeless veterans nationwide is $1.1 million this year, and Higgins says it doesn’t go far.

The mammoth volunteer effort of the San Diego Stand Down--volunteer judges will even hear criminal cases today--makes it all too clear that government assistance is limited.

“It says that we’ve got some holes in our safety net. We know they’re there,” Higgins said. “I hope that because I’ve been singled out for this position, there is recognition that more can be done,” Higgins said.

“If nothing else happened over three days than a veteran stepped up, got some clean clothes, a haircut, some hot food and someone who cares--that to me is a win,” said Van Keuren.

By midday Friday, 692 veterans had registered for the event through V.A. volunteers--about the same as last year. But Van Keuren said “hundreds” have been turned away in the past for lack of resources. In fact, this year may be the San Diego Stand Down’s last.

The event cost $50,000 to orchestrate, and “leverages a million” in terms of volunteer hours, legal services, and food and counseling that are doled out free, Van Keuren said. A $250,000 state grant that Van Keuren expected from the Employment Development Department to organize five Stand Down events statewide fell through, and his own agency is running out of funds fast.

But both Van Keuren and Higgins agree that, if other communities copy San Diego’s efforts, they may actually make a difference. “What this nation has to do is look at the individual involvement, and transfer that to a national commitment,” Van Keuren said.

“It’s all volunteerism,” said Higgins. “I hope that someone in my position can help the Robert Van Keurens of the world.”