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An Interview With A Veteran: 'Nobody Buys Meat Anymore'

By VVAW

Bill and Sue Wyman and their seven month old daughter, Mona, have moved to Placitas, New Mexico to enjoy a more quite life than they had in New York City. But the problems of Vietnam veterans have followed them even there. "Nobody buys meat anymore," says Bill. They are finding that no matter where you live you can't escape the fact that living on veteran's disability payments is becoming increasingly difficult. They have taken to eating simple meals of vegetables and often share cassarole dishes with friends.

Life hasn't always been so quiet or simple as it is now. Bill was born in Boston and was raised in a Navy family. His step-father was in the Navy for 32 years, which meant that Bill moved quite often. He lived in Italy for 3 years, moved to Rhode Island and then to Key West Florida. There he quit high school to enlist in the Army, to make it on his own.

He took Basic Training, Advanced Infantry Training, volunteered for jump school, and was then stationed in Fort Bragg, North Carolina, for seven months, prior to his being sent to the First Division in Vietnam Once in Vietnam, he spent month after month in the field without a break, precipitating his going AWOL to Saigon for two weeks. Upon his return, he was busted from SP/4 to Pvt. E-1 and fined six months pay. This experience made Bill begin to understand that the army wasn't the answer, and, more importantly, that the war in Vietnam was wrong. But he extended his tour in order to get an early discharge from the army. He was transferred to the 101st Airborne Division. After spending sixteen months in Vietnam, Bill stepped on a land mine. As a result, both of his legs were amputated.

He was medivaced to the USS Sanctuary, then to Japan for treatment and then to Chelsea Naval Hospital in Boston. During this time he was treated for a fractured femur. Due to improper treatment of this fracture, Bill still feels the pain in that remaining section of his leg. From Boston, he was given a discharge so he could obtain artificial limbs. He waited in the New York City VA Hospital on 23rd Street for four long months for the operation that would result in his finally getting the artificial legs.

It was during this time that Bill joined VVAW. He participated in Dewey Canyon III, VVAW's weeklong protest in Washington D.C., in spite of hospital administration pressure to keep him away from it. Within ten days after returning to NYC and after a letter was received from Washington ordering that he be given the operation and gotten rid of, Bill began the long road of learning to walk again. Once discharged Bill had to receive outpatient care. He was subjected to waiting from 9AM to 3PM for the doctors to look at his legs and to prescribe medicine that inadequately relieved the pain of his shattered limbs.

At this time, Bill experienced the first hold-up of his disability payments. When he went to the VA to explain this, he was told that the money was somewhere and that they would put a tracer on it. This did not pay his rent, so he was forced to borrow the money from his friends in the VA hospital.

This period of life was most depressing. The treatment and the lack of understanding of Vietnam-era veterans in the VA had frustrated Bill to the point where he could no longer tolerate the unresponsive care given to him. After having two good friends die ? one in the hospital and the other of an overdose of drugs caused by this lack of care, Bill left New York for Florida rather than get hooked on drugs himself. It was there that he met Sue. They married and returned to New York for a while, soured of it, and moved to Placitas where they began a new life.

But the VA hassles followed them, as they follow anyone who must depend on the government. Jobs in New Mexico are scarce, and Bill and Sue must depend on the disability payments to live. Trying to make the best of it has been difficult. They are now using this money to pay for food, medical care for the baby, rent, and building their own home. Disabled vets are allotted $12,500 for refurbishing apartments or homes in order to accommodate a wheelchair. Twice, Bill and Sue found homes they wanted to buy, and twice the VA investigators turned them down. Once it was because the well was too close to an arroyo, and once because the VA believes that adobe homes are not permanent structures, although they have lasted for hundreds of years. The VA told Bill that he should buy a house in Albuquerque on a 1/4 acre plot. They refuse to accept that Bill and Sue would like to live where they want. So without the help of the VA, the Wymans must build their own home, on the money from disability payments.

Bill feels that the VA is incapable of ever responding to the needs of Vietnam-era veterans. He feels that much of the drug addiction of the Vietnam-era veterans is due to improper care and lack of understanding by the VA. And the situation is getting worse. The proposed cuts in the VA will make it harder for vets to get by. "Instead of cutting funds from the VA budget, they should cut the funds from the Defense Department, the FBI and the CIA. The government should begin responding to the needs of all the people, rather than spy on them," Bill maintains.

Although he can surely use more help, bill feels that the present trend of the government to give preference to Vietnam veterans is wrong. He feels that all the people in this country should be getting help, and that to separate vets from the rest of the people is a device the government uses to pit one group of people against another. "My own personal conscience wouldn't allow me to put myself in front of anyone else."

A Navy brat, a GI in Vietnam, a hospital patient, a double-amputee, a married man, a father, and a veteran, Bill Wyman has experienced a long life. It is a tribute to his determination that he has survived so well. And yet, Bill is only one Vietnam-era veteran. There are millions more.