The Veteran Express - Don't Leave A Veteran Stranded - Help the Serving Project

 "Greater love hath no man than this, that a man lay down his life for his friends."

                                                                                              ~John 15:13

I have seen the face of every kind of veteran. Some, like the handful of World War II veterans I have met, have filled me with intense pride. They walk slow and steady with trembling hands, sometimes assisted one step at a time by a loved one, but with spirits still as strong as any I have encountered. They smile at me as I tell them it's an honor to meet them, and I feel small in their presence.

Other former soldiers make my heart ache with sadness at the broken state of the world. Men like the young Marine who, after donating a dollar to the Veterans Community Foundation, informs me he feels abandoned by Veterans Affairs because his counselor for post-traumatic stress is leaving the VA and he will have to go on a waiting list. An even more troubling encounter involves a Vietnam veteran selling newspapers on the side of the road. He is clean shaven, and seems proud of the bright orange reflective vest he wears. He is in good spirits even though he is likely homeless. He tells me he is trying to save up money for a trip to the VA in his home state, and hopes to see his family there. He's not sure how long it will take but he is determined. 

I give him a message of hope, for I had recently met an extraordinary man who would be able to help him. Keith Field gave up most everything he owned in April of 2004 to purchase a huge accordion-style bus. He founded the Serving Project with the vehicle and has spent the last nine years refurbishing the bus to accomplish his mission. Keith has dedicated his life to making sure any Veteran who needs him could get where they needed to go. This March, the bus will complete its final renovations, but it has already carried dozens of veterans across the continental United States.

"I was like ninety percent of the population out there," Keith tells me as he gives me a tour of the bus. "I thought, 'aren't they taken care of?'. I can tell you I learned real fast, they're not."

A public health study polling 23,797 veterans conducted in 2007 found that only 12.9 percent of veterans use their VA benefits at all. For 22.5 percent of these veterans, the VA insurance is their only health coverage. The numbers on veterans who do not use their VA benefits are even more troubling. Even though the majority not insured at the VA have private insurance or medicare, 8.6 percent of our American heros under the age of 65 are completely uninsured. The study estimated this number to be around a staggering 1.3 million veterans. (Public Health Rep. 2007 Jan-Feb; 122(1): 93–100.)

Mr. Field told me he was present at a speech given in 2012 by the Honorable Eric K. Shinseki, where the Secretary of Veterans Affairs confirmed these numbers and named lack of transportation as the main reason so many uninsured veterans do not seek their rightful healthcare. It is difficult to wrap my mind around 1.3 million people not having the funds for a trip to the nearest city VA hospital, but the more time I spend among other veterans as a non profit worker, and the more I think about men like the one selling newspapers, the more I realize our veterans are still being left out in the cold.

Over the next few years, the population of veterans will increase another thirty to fifty thousand as more soldiers return home from the Middle East. Secretary Shineski is concerned about how much this will compound the situation, and Keith's contacts at the Wounded Warrior organization are already feeling overwhelmed with the 47,000 Veterans they currently service.  

The road has not been an easy one for this project, and it has had its share of setbacks. The risk Keith took was enormous. The cost of keeping the bus running and upgrading it to be able to properly accommodate disabled veterans, amputees, or other handicapped individuals was incalculable. Wherever he went, people told him the project would never get off the ground, that it would never be sustainable. In 2013 alone, Keith has had to decline five veterans the trip they needed to make due to lack of funding for gas money. It has only been in the last six months that the project has begun to fully take shape and stand on its own two legs, all thanks to the efforts of several small charities, a wheelchair lift distributer who designed a custom lift for the bus capable of safely lifting 860 pounds, and even the efforts of a mother of three sons on active duty to help give the bus an artistic touch. 

Her quilt, the largest military-themed quilt in the world, adorns the entire ceiling of the front section of the bus. It is the largest symbol on a bus full of symbols of the price our veterans paid to preserve our liberty, from the stone stairs at the bus' entrance, to the "purple heart" hardwood floor, to the hand-made stone wall honoring those who have paid the ultimate sacrifice in our nation's conflicts. For an inside look at the bus itself, please take a look at this five minute video promoting the serving project. 

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=tJFzOGZtrK0&feature=youtu.be

Keith and his associates have big plans for the future of Serving Project, but they need our help to reach the goal of creating a unique charity enterprise capable of sustaining itself. The dream is to add three more vehicles equal in size and capacity to the first bus. In other words, each bus will be able to carry up to five wheel-chaired veterans and their families (or about a dozen people comfortably). Each will meet the same ADA standards for wheelchair accessibility, provide for all dietary needs during the trip, have easy maneuvering to and from specially designed restrooms, and be easy for a disable veteran to self transition from seats to bunks and vice versa.

The mammoth busses can cary up to 200 gallons of fuel and get around 1800 highways miles per tank, but in the city where stopping and starting is common place, milage drops to under three miles a gallon. Therefore, another goal is to commission a fleet of smaller buses for metropolitan areas. They would carry veterans from their homes to meet up with the larger buses. All of this infrastructure would save time and money, and give countless other veterans jobs under a business model being created by the newly founded Serving Project, Inc. Each vehicle would cost an estimated $400,000 to purchase and outfit, and around $250,000 to run annually.

We can help make it happen.  Please go to the link below and click the donate button. You can either pledge to cover a block of miles, or donate a fixed amount. If anything, we have the power to make certain no veteran who requests this service is ever left behind. Twenty two veterans a day commit suicide - one every sixty five minutes. Might we make a difference if veterans who feel stranded and alone could get to a VA center for the care they desperately need? Keith perhaps put it best as he closed his tour.

"We never leave a guy out on the battlefield. We go back and get him. Why when we bring them home, do we abandon them?"

Donate Here:

www.servingproject.org

You can also get daily updates on the Serving Project by liking and sharing this facebook page:

https://www.facebook.com/ServingProject

References:

1. Interview: Keith Fields 30 November and 7 December 2013

2. Nelson, Karen M., Starkebaum, Gordon A., Reiber, Gayle E., "Veterans Using and Uninsured Veterans not Using Veterans Affairs (VA) Health Care" Public Health Rep. 2007 Jan-Feb; 122(1): 93–100.