VETERANS WON'T SIT STILL, BE IGNORED.

Byline: DENNIS McCARTHY 

If the Department of Veteran's Affairs officials trying to squeeze the life out of the once-proud, flourishing Sepulveda VA thought the old vets who come here for services and camaraderie were going to fade into the sunset without a fight, boy, were they wrong.

About 200 vets of World War II, Korea and Vietnam, along with dozens of their family members and supporters, marched in protest in front of the North Hills VA facility Sunday morning as a light rain fell.

They'd all rather have been celebrating Veterans Day marching in a big parade carrying a flag, they said, but more cutbacks at the Sepulveda VA had forced them back out on the front line Sunday - waving protest placards, instead of flags.

``The Dominoes Stop Here,'' one sign read, summing up the feeling. This was indeed a last stand - with a warning message the old vets wanted to send to the new recruits.

``If the government cuts back the services promised its older veterans because we've become too expensive, what does that say to the current and future generation of soldiers?'' said 90-year-old Bill Geninder, a World War II veteran who was wounded in France.

``In 50, 60 years, they're going to be us, and this place isn't going to be here for them unless we fight for it now,'' the North Hollywood man said.

For years, old vets like Geninder, and Eppie Campos and Willie Goldsmith, both 80, have stood by and watched the services at Sepulveda dwindle, as programs and staff were sent over the hill to the West Los Angeles VA facility in a cost-cutting effort.

``Nobody seemed to give a damn that our older vets couldn't afford or weren't physically able to drive over the hill,'' said Vietnam veteran Pasqual Ramirez.

The latest proposed cutbacks in the face of a $25 million budget shortfall at Sepulveda calls for 300 more staff cuts and the loss of a handful of popular rehab and therapy programs.

``I was a schoolteacher for 30 years, and whenever the district had to make a cut the first place it always looked was the classroom,'' says vet Bill Rowland.

``The VA's doing the same thing with its patients.''

These vets didn't run when their government needed them to fight, and they're not about to quit fighting now that the tables are turned, and they need their government to help them.

Fred Flores, a representative for U.S. Rep. Howard Berman, D-Mission Hills, told the vets and their families that his boss was supporting their efforts in Congress by backing a special appropriations bill that would increase the VA's budget by more than $1 billion over last year.

``I'm a vet who also uses the services here at Sepulveda, and I know the effect the cutbacks have had on all our local vets,'' Flores said.

``The government made promises to you guys, and we're standing shoulder to shoulder with you to make sure they are fulfilled,'' he said.

Also standing shoulder to shoulder with the vets were women like Mary O'Connor, who had come to the protest rally to support her five brothers, all veterans, and Wendy Greuel, whose grandfather served in World War I and whose father in World War II.

There was also Lisa Kirschenbaum, and her mom, Lillian, there to support Jerry Kirschenbaum, a World War II and Korean War veteran.

And there was Maxim Flam, who was instrumental in organizing the protest rally. Her late father, Sidney Flam, was a decorated combat medic in World War II.

There were vets like Richard Fish and Maurice Rotheiser, who have Kaiser Hospital medical insurance and don't use the VA facility, but they came out in the rain Sunday to show support for their brothers who do.

Whatever war these vets served in, and whatever branch of the service they did it in doesn't matter, said World War II vet Ralph Burns, commander of VFW Post 1040 in Lake View Terrace.

``We're all brothers and sisters, all looking out and fighting for each other,'' he said. ``We're too damn old to quit now.''

So, yeah, if the VA thought these Sepulveda VA vets were going to roll over and die without a fight, boy, were they wrong.

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Photo:

Vietnam War veteran Paul Martinez of Panorama City joins hundreds of his fellow vets Sunday in protesting ongoing cutbacks at the Department of Veterans Affairs Southern California System at Sepulveda facility in North Hills.

Charlotte Schmid-Maybach/Staff Photographer