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Me#1You#10
Site Admin
Joined: 06 May 2004
Posts: 6503
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 Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 8:25 am Post subject: B.Kesler:"Kerry’s Victimized Veterans Need Help" |
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Bruce Kesler at the "Democracy Project" on the plight of some of our former comrades-in-arms...
| Quote: | November 2, 2007
Another Group of Kerry’s Victimized Veterans Need Help Urgently
Most of you know that John Kerry’s misrepresentations seriously harmed American veterans of Vietnam for over a generation. In 2004 we set the record straight.
Another large group of veterans have suffered even more: veterans of the South Vietnamese Army, Marines and special forces. Our abandonment has left them at the untender mercies of Hanoi, which refuses to care for their serious wounds, some literally dragging their war-crippled bodies through the dirt for decades.
My friend R.J. DelVecchio (Del), a Marine veteran of Vietnam, has waged a singular campaign to provide secret financial assistance, to cobble together wheelchairs from scrap and such, and has made several ordealing journies to South Vietnam to deliver help. The 501 (c) (3) tax deductible foundation Del helps lead is The Vietnam Healing Foundation.
See for yourself, at The Vietnam Healing Foundation’s website, those in need. PLEASE contribute whatever you can, and please pass the word through your blogs and to your email friends.
Del now begs for your help. He just sent me a long email, excerpts below:
I was in Saigon in Spring of '06 and December/January of this past year again, to find and qualify needy vets. This last trip was tougher, because the Hanoi authorities don't like any kind of help being given to their old enemies, even 32 years after the war is over….
Anyhow, we are now helping 80+ very poor/sick vets, with some difficulty as we have to change local helpers to keep them out of trouble but still get the money we send over right into the hands of those who need it. Due to our very limited funds, we had to (very sadly) start turning away all new requests for aid that were coming in.
And the really bad news is that we cannot qualify for grants and other forms of official support here, because of the way we work, that is, without going through the government in Viet Nam. (Which would never cooperate in what we're doing.) None of us is an expert fundraiser, so we have been barely keeping things going. We're pretty worried about getting through the quarterly sending of funds over there for 2008.
The point of all this is to ask that you consider making any sort of contribution to the charity that you might care to, and no gift is too small. Remember, $10 will feed an old man for most of a week over there, or get him a supply of medicine for a while. We are a 501c (3) charity, so all contributions are deductible. Our overhead runs at maybe 3%, to pay expenses for our agents in Vietnam, all the rest of the work here is by volunteers like myself. Contributions to VHF get you a much bigger "bang for the buck" than most charities, in terms of value delivered to those who desperately need help….
If you have any questions at all, please let me know and I'll do my best to explain whatever it is that you ask about.
Thanks for reading, best wishes for a great Thanksgiving.
Del
PS- we're trying to get a PayPal setup on the website, but in the meantime checks to Vietnam Healing Foundation can be mailed to
Vietnam Healing Foundation
P.O Box 641
Willow Springs, NC 27592 Del’s email is techconsultserv@juno.com for any questions
For more background, I’ve previously written about the Vietnam Healing Foundation and Del’s trips:
Forgotten South Vietnamese Allies
Vietnam Healing Foundation
Travelogue Through Vietnam’s “War Museum”
Democracy Project |
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BuffaloJack
Master Chief Petty Officer of the Navy
Joined: 10 Aug 2004
Posts: 1637
Location: Buffalo, New York
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| Posted: Mon Nov 05, 2007 12:21 pm Post subject: |
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It isn't just the Hanoi government that wants these veterans to struggle, there are road blocks thrown up here as well.
About 8 or 9 years back, my best friend, Nick, a former Cobra pilot, tried to make use of a quirk in the medical appliances law here in New York State. When a hospital or other institution provides a wheel chair to a patient, the wheel chair cannot be re-used after the patient is better. New York State Health Department rules. They throw them out. Nick got a local trucking firm to donate trucking, picked up several hundred wheel chairs (over several months). and then went begging for someone to airlift the chairs to Viet Nam for use by anyone needing them (most veterans). An international freight hauler donated space and about 150 used wheel chairs went to Tan Son Nhut. Nick was very pleased. When he tried to repeat this deed, none of the hospitals and nursing homes who had donated chairs would repeat their charity. They had been threatened by New York State with legal action for violating the medical appliances rules.
Nick's further attempts went nowhere. There were never any more wheel chairs sent to Viet Nam.
Nick died last year of cancer, so this ends it for good.
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Swift Boats - Qui Nhon (12/69-4/70), Cat Lo (4/70-5/70), Vung Tau (5/70-12/71) |
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