One day, a few months after we had been named one of President Bush’s Thousand Points of Light, my phone rang.
What is it now? I thought.
“Ken Smith, please. This is the White House calling,” said the voice.
I had plenty of friends who were big-time practical jokers and I said, “Yeah, right,” and hung up.
A minute later the phone rang again.
“This is the White House calling and please do not hang up,” said the voice. “We have someone who wishes to speak with you.”
I still wasn’t convinced but then a woman came onto the phone and identified herself as the White House liaison for the Points of Light.
This woman (I will call her Betty), said, “Mr. Smith, the president is anxious to meet his Points of Light. He will be in town next week for a fundraiser and would like you to meet him at the airport when he deplanes Air Force One. You can have a photo op. He does this all over the country.”
I made plans to be there, and a week later, after passing though all kinds of security, I and maybe six other people were in line to meet the president.
The governor was there, and some big shot Republican businessmen were there and right on time, the big Boeing 747 that was Air Force One taxied right up to where we were waiting.
While we were waiting I had met Betty and she said to me that once the plane has stopped, they will bring a stairway over to the aircraft and you will line up with the others at the bottom of that stairway and the president will shake your hand and the photographer will take your picture, and then you will go home.
After five minutes, the stairs were wheeled over and sure enough George H. W. Bush came down the stairs followed by his wife and about ten other people.
At the end of the stairs was the governor and some of the businessmen and after a moment or two, the president went one by one to those points of light standing in line.
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When he came to me, and as he was shaking my hand, I said, “Mr. President, I will trade you a tour of the homeless veterans shelter for a tour of Air Force One.”
The president looked at me kind of strangely and said, “You want a tour of Air Force One?”
“Yes sir, I do, and for that I will trade you a tour of our homeless veterans shelter.”
The president turned and looked at one of the guys walking behind him carrying a clipboard and said, “Bill, arrange for this veteran to get a tour of the aircraft for me, please.”
“Yes, Mr. President,” is all I heard.
Within five minutes it was over. Everyone was leaving and this guy Bill came to me and said, let’s go.
We walked up the exact same stairs that the president had walked down.
I stopped at the top of the stairs, turned around and did that wave you see the presidents do.
We then walked onboard and into a huge hallway and to my left I could see a bedroom.
Through the door I could see a bed and the bedspread with that big logo of the presidential seal that you see on podiums when he speaks.
“Can I look?” I said to Bill.
“Sure, but don’t touch anything,” he said, following me in.
Wowhere I was in the airborne bedroom of the most famous and most powerful man in the world.
I looked around and saw a bathroom.
I walked in and said to Bill, “Do you mind?”
I closed the door and was talking to myself. “Holy crap, I’m on Air Force One and I’m going to pee where the president pees.” I lifted the seat, did my business, and was looking around and saw a basket with soaps and pens and a few notecard-type-things all with the presidential seal. I jammed as many as I could into my pockets, flushed, and opened the door.
Bill was there. “You know, we had planned on giving you that stuff when the tour was done,” he said.
“You were watching?” was all I could think of to say.
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“It’s my job. Now let’s look around.”
We went through the entire aircraft and there was an office that the president uses, a conference room, a sick bay, a galley and all kinds of seating areas that had couches and tables. I could see all kinds of people cleaning and Bill said, follow me, and we went up some stairs.
What I saw next blew my mind.
Now, usually we think of a pilot flying a plane with a co-pilot and on huge planes, maybe one other guy. Here on either side of the aisle, on the flight deck of Air Force One, were all kinds of peoplemaybe a dozen on each sideall with computers and radio headsets on. I was awestruck.
“This is the communications system that keeps the president in the loop,” is all Bill would say.
He then took me to the very front of the flight deck and asked if I wanted to sit in the pilot’s seat.
“Oh yeah,” I said.
I took a seat and thought, OMG, I’m driving the plane of the president.
We then left that deck and I was introduced to the commander of the Secret Service, who said, “You’re the guys who did that March in D.C. a while back, aren’t you?”
“Yes sir, we are.”
“Well, like you, I’m a veteran.” These Secret Service guys are trained to never show emotionbut I got the message.
He showed me all the neat stuff the Secret Service had on boardall kinds of weapons and secret things I said I wouldn’t talk about. It was very cool.
We continued through the plane and I got to see the kitchen, where there were like ten chefs or workers all cleaning and prepping and the whole tour seemed surreal. We continued on to where the press sat and it looked like a regular plane, except to me it all looked like first class seatingno cheap economy class for the press.
At the end, sure enough, Bill presented me with a small bag and inside were cufflinks, a pin, pencils, pens, notepads, napkins, and a coffee mug, all officially inscribed “Air Force One.”
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It was a tour to remember.
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Chapter 25: Oliver Stone Visits the Shelter
Before we founded the shelter, as I have said, I was in a combat support group with about a dozen other veterans. We met every Wednesday night starting at seven o’clock and the meetings usually lasted till nine. Usually, we would start arriving at the vet center around 6:30. On this one night, when I arrived, Mark was already there. It was right after Christmas, 1986.
“Hey, the VA is sending us to the movies,” he said excitedly.
“The movies? What movies?”
John Wilder was our counselor and he said, “The VA is buying tickets for you to go and see the new Oliver Stone movie called Platoon.”
“What’s it about?” I asked.
“It’s about Nam,” said Mark, “and this guy Stone, the director, he was a grunt.”
“Crap,” I said. I was looking forward to group.
“Well, this is a special VA treat,” said John, “You can hold onto whatever you need to talk about for another week.”
After everyone had arrived, we piled into a VA van, and John drove us to the theatre.
When we arrived, we saw that other vets were attending too. John brought us up to the counter and said, “Whatever you want guys, it’s on the VA.”
We all ordered large popcorns and large drinks and everyone got a box of candy.
“This is the only thing the VA has ever done for me,” I said to Mark.
“Yeah, well, enjoy.”
We entered the theatre and because this was some kind of premier showing, there were no coming attractions.
We sat down, had a little chitchat for maybe a minute or two, and the theatre went dark.
Now if you have seen the movie Platoon, you know, it starts out with a vet arriving in Nam and it just gets more intense as the movie continues.
There are scenes in that movie that any vet who served in Vietnam, and who was in the infantry, can relate to easily. The scene where the character played by Charlie Sheen was 151
accused of sleeping on guard duty while out on patrol sticks out in my mind. Someone from the unit I was in actually did something like that, and the consequences were intense.
The night battles and the general jungle noises and the combat scenes portrayed are etched in my mind, even today.
I don’t know how long the movie wasan hour and half, two hoursbut I felt like I had been in a marathon when finally the movie was over and the lights came up.
I looked around and not one of us had eaten any popcorn, drank any of our drinks, or eaten any of our candy.
“Holy crap,” said Mark. “Can you believe it?”
I couldn’t, and I my only thought was that I was going to have serious nightmares that night.
Some of the vets liked the movie and some didn’t, but most agreed it was the most intense war movie they had ever seen.
As I expected, that night in bed I was tossing and turning, I got sweaty, and in my mind I was back in the jungle again. I had flashbacks of when I was out on patrol and could smell the smells and remember things I wanted to seriously forget.
All week long I had different sensations that I hadn’t had for years.
A traffic helicopter would go by and I would cringe.
I had an ambulance call to one of the islands in Boston Harbor where there is a police firing range. There had been a minor accident, but while I was there I could smell the cordite from the officers who were taking pistol firing practice.
It seemed that I got little or no sleep that whole week.
Finally it was the night for group, and I went extra early.
I was one of the first to arrive and John Wilder said, “Are you OK?”
“No,” I said, “I am not OK. Whose lamebrain idea was it to take us to that movie? I haven’t slept all week and I’m still walking around on pins and needles.”
“Well, sometimes remembering is good,” was all John would say.
The group met that night and every single one of the vets, with the exception of one called “Cookie man,” was pissed about the movie.
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Cookie man was in a coma. He didn’t talk, didn’t really participate, and his eyes were a million miles away.
For two hours we blasted John for what he did and the VA for what they did, but looking back at it now, it had a purpose. We needed to go and see that movie and learn what had happened to each of us. It was cathartic and now I see the wisdom of going.
Back then? Well, I was just pissed.
Fast-forward a few years and the shelter at Court Street was open and thriving. One day someone on the staff of Senator Kerry called me and said, “I hear that Oliver Stone will be in town.”
Now I didn’t know this guy, but I knew he was famous and I had some harebrained idea he might take an interest in the shelter. Through this staff person I sent out an invite for the director to come to the shelter.
I also knew that if we could get Oliver Stone to the shelter it would make news. That’s how I had conditioned myself to think: let no opportunity go unexploited. I alerted my staff to send out a press release about Stone coming, when and if I gave them the green light.
A few hours later the staff person from Kerry’s office called and said Mr. Stone will be there at five o’clock, but he doesn’t want any media to attend. He wants to do this privately.
I thought about that for maybe two minutes and at the time I was cocky and thought I knew everything. I told the staff to send out the press release anyway.
Sure enough, at 5pm here comes Oliver Stone, and at 5:05 here comes the press.
What I didn’t know was there was some unrelated controversy that was playing out that had nothing to do with the shelter, and the press ambushed the guy.
I could tell at once he was pissed.
He was such a professional that he gave his attention to each member of the press, did some interviews, and walked around the questions that he didn’t want to answer. Fifteen minutes later, when he was done and the press had left, he looked at me, came up face-to-face, and called me an asshole.
I deserved it.
He wasn’t what I thought he would be. He was a grunt and I had done to him what I would never want to have happen to me. I had walked him into an L-shaped ambush.
To this day I am sorry for what I did. I was so smart I was stupid.
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Oliver Stone is a class act, and I am proud that he made the movie Platoon.
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Chapter 26: Stand Down and the San Diego Trip
The shelter had been open a few years and as a result, in certain circles we became very well known. Sort of.
There was this great veterans’ advocate in San Diego named Robert Van Keuren and this guy, almost single-handedly, had developed a program in an area of the country where there were thousands of homeless vets. California has the right climate and there is a huge military presence in San Diego, and it doesn’t hurt that it has Tijuana on its border. You put all of those ingredients together and it’s lightning in a bottle.
San Diego was a haven for homeless vets. And some of those vets were very hardcore.
One day I got a call from this guy and he says, you got to come to San Diego as we are showcasing our newest program called Stand Down, and I want you to see this in action.
“Stand down” was a term most combat Vietnam vets were familiar with, as oftenbut not often enoughwhile you were fighting in the jungle, if your unit was lucky you were sent to the rear for a stand down.
The idea this guy had was to do a three-day stand down in San Diego and provide a place where homeless vets could go and get a clean set of clothes, have a hot meal, get looked at medically, and even have a dentist take a look at dental problems. They’d sleep overnight in tents. At the event, the VA was in attendance, helping vets file claims for disability.
Overall it sounded like a good thing.
Mark and I arrived at our hotel after a killer flight that seemed to take forever, and then quickly made our way to the address that we were given to see this event first hand.
When we got close to the address, there were these big “MASH” tents set up in a park, and each tent was a station and as we walked around there were singers, a large BBQ area all smoky and smelling good, and tons and tons of vets milling around.
Bobby Van Keuren was beaming, and even to this day, there are stand downs held around the country.
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However, when the event was over and Mark and I were alone with Bobby, I said, ”You know, my friend, three days out of the year, when vets get services at a stand down, is less than one percent of the year. What happens to these guys the other ninety-nine percent of the time?”
Bobby got wicked pissed. “What? You think you know everything? You’re now a Mr.
Smartypants and have all the answers about veterans who are homeless? This event saw 2,300 homeless vets in three days, and those guys, our brothers, got hot food, new sneakers, fresh water, we even had the friggin’ DMV on site getting old parking tickets washed and new licenses doneso what, that wasn’t worth it to you?”
“Look,” I said, “I don’t mean to make it sound like I’m ungrateful, but step backtake a big step back. What happens to those 2,300 homeless veterans tomorrow, or next week, or next month, or the month after that? I’ll tell you what happens: they go right back to what they were doing, which was drinking or drugging or scamming or pan handling, and what did you do? You gave them three days’ of peace, a new pair of sneakers, and a shower.
Jesus, Bobby, when we went on an R&R in Nam at least we got a whole friggin’ week. You gave them three days and all the people that helped you pull this together feel great and everyone is patting themselves on the back about pulling this off and you know what? It wasn’t worth it, because you’re not doing any follow up.”
Holy crap, the guy wanted to fight me.
“You’re an asshole,” he said. “People told me you were, and now I see with my own eyes what they’re saying. You really are an asshole.”
The trip was off to an auspicious start.
Living in San Diego at that time was Joan Kroc, the widow of the founder of McDonald’s.
(Ray Kroc had died in 1984; after pursuing her philanthropic activities for nearly two decades, Joan Kroc passed away in 2003). Mrs. Kroc had generously donated millions for a new state-of-the-art shelter for the homeless in downtown San Diego. When I say this place was sweet, I mean real sweet. Called St. Vincent De Paul, it was run at the time by Father Joe Carroll.
This guy was a crackerjack homeless advocate and could really get things done.
I wanted to meet him, and actually, I think, he wanted to meet me.
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Anyways, Mark and I had a day to kill so we went over to this shelter and I learned a few things about how to deal with people.
There were women, children, vets, non-vets, and illegal aliens, all in the same place and all living like a family.
That was what Father Carroll did; he built and maintained a family of America’s discards.
I knew that’s what I needed to learn. How to relate better to those who were homeless. I needed to learn to listen more, and this was the teacher.
Father Carroll had the deepest eyes I have ever seen. He literally could look right into you. That was what I thought when we met.
I shook his hand and he looked right at me as he held my hand, and at the same time he did one of those “grab both hand handshakes” where he was holding one of my hands with two of his.
“You’re in pain, Ken,” he said, looking right into my eyes. “I can see it on your soul.”
Holy crap, this guy is good, is all I could think.
“Well, father, we’re all in painall of us who work in this business of the homelessand I can see you’re in pain, too,” I managed to reply.
“Touché.” He smiled. “I have heard about you and wondered what you were like and now that I’ve met you, I see, well, you’re exactly what I thought you would be.”
“What about me?” chimed in Mark.
“You, my son, well, you’re a man on a mission, and you will leave here today with God’s blessings.”
We got a tour of this spanking-new facility, had some lunch prepared by the clients, and then it was time to do our one last chore. Senior staff of the mayor of San Diego had asked us to explore the possibility of having US Navy “Barracks Barges,” which were in deep storage in San Diego Harbor, converted to homeless shelters for veterans.
“We won’t use any city real estate,” is what they said in the meeting that Mark and I went to. So Mark and I had an appointment to meet with the Navy guy who was in charge of the mothball fleet that sat in San Diego Harbor.
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Before our meeting, Mark and I took a ride over the bridge to Coronado as I wanted to see where the Navy SEALs trained, but we had no clearance to get in through the gate and onto the base, so we settled on a visit to the hotel Del Coronado.
If you ever get the chance, go see this jewel of a hotel.
While there, Mark and I thought what the hell, let’s go out on the beach; and since we had our luggage in the car, we liberated a towel from the hotel, put on our bathing suits, and went for a walk.
The beach was amazing, and the sightsOMG, these California women were wearing tiny G-string bikini things and I think Mark and I both snapped our necks that day.
After a while, it got hot, and I thought it would be refreshing to jump in the water.
Without even sticking my toe in to feel the temperature of the ocean I ran maybe forty yards at top speed across blazing hot sand from where I had dropped my towel and right into the water. As soon I had made contact with the water, I knew I had made a huge mistake: the water was like ice. I don’t know how cold it actually was, but it was cold enough to give me an ice cream headache as soon as I went underwater.
I ran out as fast as I ran in.
“Cold, huh?” was all Mark could say.
“Yeaaaah! Cold!”
We went back to the hotel and got a hot coffee. I sat on the veranda and thought about how many earthquakes this part of the country had, and I was grateful to be living in New England.
We then went on to our meeting with the navy guy and got a tour of a barracks barge. I couldn’t imagine ever using these things as shelters. The insides of this mothballed barracks barge was a rabbit’s warren of rooms, corridors, and who knows what. Like most Navy boats, it had a particular smell to it of oil, paint, and latrine. I wondered how you powered something like this, and how a guy like RR&L could get this hulk working. This concept would never work, I said to myself. Besides getting the homeless vets here every day, and on an off, where the hell would set up your programs?
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There were tons of hiding places and little sneaky areas that I would imagine a homeless vet would findyou would need five hundred security guards to make sure that the vets did what they were told.
I also wondered what would happen if someone fell overboard. Who would be in charge of that?
It was a decent idea. At least someone was thinking. It was an idea that needed to be looked at, but in the end, the logistics would have killed you.
Mark and I made our way to the airport after our report to the mayor’s staff and I said no more of these kinds of trips where we come to figure out someone else’s headache. We needed to focus on what we have been doing in Boston and see if we can do it better.
Mark agreed.
But a month later we were on our way to Miami, doing almost the exact same thing.
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