While Some Veterans Parade, Others Picket a Health Clinic

On a day of parades to honor their service to the nation, nearly 200 veterans instead picketed outside a San Fernando Valley clinic Sunday, criticizing the government’s health-care system for unduly burdening those who have defended the United States.

Those who rely on the Department of Veterans Affairs’ Sepulveda Ambulatory Care Center say services at the sprawling campus in North Hills have gradually been cut, forcing them to seek treatment at other facilities far from their homes. Some report having to pay private insurers for coverage they once received free as part of the benefits the federal government provides to veterans.

“The war is still on for us,” said Steve Palmer, 78, a World War II vet who helped organize the rally. “It’s the veterans against” the administrators who run the VA’s local clinics and hospitals, he said.

The Sepulveda center was closed Sunday, and a spokeswoman for the local veterans’ health-care system could not be reached for comment on the protest. But Fred Flores, an aide to Rep. Howard Berman (D-Mission Hills), told the picketers that he sympathized with their complaints and suggested the situation would improve with a proposed $1-billion increase in federal funding for the veterans department.

Elsewhere Sunday, there were more traditional observances of Veterans Day. On the date when World War I ended, activities ranged from a parade in Carson to speeches in Commerce to skydivers in Arcadia. Military aircraft flew over Pasadena, and in Los Angeles the Union Mission served food to homeless veterans.

Los Angeles was also the end point Sunday for the 3,800-mile journey of an American flag carried by more than 5,000 runners to trace the planned routes of two Boston-to-Los Angeles airliners hijacked on Sept. 11.

During the protest in North Hills, the men and women veterans from four wars waved flags damp from the drizzle and acknowledged the supportive honking of passing cars.

“We really don’t want to be here. We’d rather be celebrating in a parade,” said Harry Coleman, a 63-year-old veteran of the Vietnam War.

Many wore parts of their old uniforms along with their medals. One 74-year-old Navy veteran whistled ship calls on a pipe he used as a boatswain in World War II.

The protesters’ chief complaint was not that they are being denied health care but that to receive services once offered at the Sepulveda center, they now must travel to a clinic in West Los Angeles. For Arthur Martin of Panorama City, who needs physical therapy for his knees and back, that is the difference between a 10-minute bus ride and one that takes nearly two hours.

“We’re not asking for any more than we had,” Martin said. A 76-year-old veteran of three wars and three branches of the military, he worries about the medical benefits that will be available to those currently in the nation’s armed services.

“What about the young men fighting [in and near Afghanistan] right now? What are they going to come back to?” he asked.

Los Angeles County has the largest concentration of veterans of any U.S. county, according to the Department of Veterans Affairs. Of the 25.5 million veterans entitled to federal benefits, more than 1 million live in the area served by the Sepulveda center and its sister clinics.

Answering one of the Valley veterans’ long-standing gripes, congressional aide Flores did promise that a gymnasium damaged in the 1994 Northridge earthquake will be rebuilt beginning in December or January.