Still Living with the War

For Viet Nam veterans, the battle for better care continues

Eight years after the Viet Nam War ended, Americans who fought it have not yet won a hero's homecoming. That condition became especially galling to them when the Iran hostages returned to cheering crowds this winter. Yet, increasingly, the veterans' demands are shifting from spiritual appreciation for their sacrifices to material help of the kind sought by past generations of warriors: tuition aid comparable to the G.I. Bill of Rights; generous and inclusive disability pensions; and, more and more, better treatment at the nation's 172 Veterans Administration hospitals.

The protests for improved medical care are sometimes as passionate as protests against the war used to be. Despite a conciliatory letter from the White House, two Viet veterans' groups continued a sit-in and a hunger strike at the Veterans Administration Wadsworth Medical Center in Los Angeles, a city that has become the focus of veteran activism. One of the 16 hunger strikers, a diabetic, had collapsed after refusing food and insulin for four days, and four others have quit. But, vows Hunger Striker Kenneth Van Glen: "We're going to stay out as long as it takes."

Both groups are protesting the death of James Hopkins, 32, a onetime Marine who thought his Viet Nam service injuries were driving him mad and that the Government would not help him. In March Hopkins donned his camouflage fatigues, drove his Jeep through glass doors into the Wadsworth lobby and shot up the walls with an M-14 rifle. Two months later he died at home, an open liquor bottle and an empty pill container near by.

Hopkins' suffering typified a number of major problems complicating relations between the Government and Viet Nam veterans. First, the Reagan Administration had announced plans to make deep cuts in the VA budget. Second, most VA hospitals are far better equipped to handle physical disabilities, which are the norm among older veterans, than psychological disabilities, which predominate among Viet Nam vets. Third, the VA has been slow to acknowledge the existence of "delayed stress syndrome," mental illnesses that arise years after their cause has ceased--in this case the war. Fourth, the Government has rejected the claim of thousands of Viet Nam veterans that a wide range of symptoms, many of which developed since the G.I.s returned, can be blamed on exposure to a deadly defoliant called Agent Orange, 12 million gal. of which were used by U.S. forces in Viet Nam.

Scientists have linked dioxin, the most toxic element in Agent Orange, to cancer in animals. Researchers in Italy and Viet Nam claim dioxin is tied to birth defects in humans. Veterans also blame the chemical for headaches, sexual dysfunction and organ damage. They say perhaps 80,000 soldiers were exposed to dioxin. The Federal Government says there is no way to tell, although some 45,000 soldiers have been tested and a federally financed study is under way at the University of California at Los Angeles School of Public Health.

Veterans have other complaints about the VA hospitals, including poor food, long waits, unsympathetic staff and allegations that patients had been used as "guinea pigs" for testing of new drugs and for teaching interns electroshock therapy and surgery. Former Infantryman John Howard of Brookfield, Ill., who is a truck driver by day, spends nights trying to persuade veterans to abandon the VA hospitals' treatment for postwar psychological problems, which includes the administering of tranquilizers, in favor of drug-free rap sessions at a pair of ad hoc veterans' centers in Chicago.

President Reagan's choice to be the new head of the VA, former California State Senator Robert P. Nimmo, is not expected to be confirmed by the Senate until July. Until then the agency may not be able to do much to meet the concerns of Viet Nam veterans. Last week the White House responded to the protests at Wadsworth Hospital, giving reassurances that the VA budget would be cut by only $110 million, and by reducing administrative expenses, not programs. That total was a reduction that Congress had forced on the President in place of his proposed $900 million in cuts. The White House also vowed to authorize a $9.54 million research program on the effects of Agent Orange. The VA promises, which one protest leader called "a bitter disappointment," were not enough to end the sit-in and hunger strike. The veterans' movement vows that its war for better medical care is far from over.

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