The shelter had been running for a while when I became aware of a special Department of Labor grant program that was used to help homeless veterans. The grant was out of the Office of the Assistant Secretary for Veterans' Employment and Training Service.
This DOL grant was competitive and I always prided myself on getting our grant writing staff to outline and submit the best grants in the nation.
The veteran in the VETS post as the Assistant Secretary at the time was a retired air force general and he was a good guy. He also had on his staff a couple of good guys, but for the most part his staff had no clue about dealing with homeless veterans and I was determined to educate them.
I had asked a number of times for a meeting with this assistant secretary to back-brief him on employment and training of the homeless veteran population.
The staff of the secretary would always find a way to either postpone or cancel the meeting.
After this happened a number of times I decided to make good on a promise and a threat to this general’s senior staff. I told his staff that I would be in Washington D.C. on a certain day and would be coming to the office of the assistant secretary at a certain time.
If there were no meeting, I would order coffins to be delivered and placed right outside the window of the assistant secretary’s office. Then I would call the media and say, “This office, the office of the assistant secretary for veterans employment and training, which is supposed to be helping homeless veterans, is in fact, by not doing anything, killing my brothers.”
Now that was a bold move, and one that I called “guerrilla theatre” and one that I learned from David Mamet. Mamet would take his right hand and pat his chest and say,
“Theater has a place in everyday work,” and I knew that by saying I was going to send coffins to this guy’s office, I had better be prepared.
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I had my staff call most of the funeral homes in the greater Washington D.C. area and explain that I wanted to rent a coffin for an hour, and would pay for the transport and the cost of the hearse and the attendant that I would want standing by the coffin and told them the exact street address (right outside the office of the assistant secretary). I said I would pay in advance, and on a call from me, I wanted the coffin delivered, and placed on the sidewalk for a movie shoot that would last one hour.
I then tasked my staff to reach out to the D.C. police department and get a permit that would allow me to do a film shoot from point A on this street to point B, and I wanted the area cleared of any cars the night before, as I need this space to conduct my movie shoot.
Right at 10am, I walked into DOL with Mark Helberg and we ran into Tom Keefe, one of the good guys on the staff of the assistant secretary.
“I know you said you were coming, but really, no shit, the assistant secretary is extremely busy and I’m not sure we can get this done today,” said Tom.
In attendance with us was our dear friend Greg Bresser , whom I had known for years.
Greg was a senior member of a large veterans’ organization. Greg kept saying, “Jesus, don’t bring any coffins, don’t bring any freakin’ coffins.”
As I sat there and talked with Mark about the next step, out of the office came the assistant secretary.
“Welcome, Ken,” he said, “I’ve heard a lot about you. Come in and let’s chat.”
As we entered into the meeting conference room, his other staffwho I thought were absolute dicksattempted to tell this assistant secretary that I had blackmailed my way into this meeting.
“Is it true?” he asked. “Were you going to have coffins put on the sidewalk outside my office?”
“Yes sir, it’s true. It’s not a reflection of your commitment to the veteran who is homeless, but it is a serious reflection on some of the dicks who work for you.”
With that, the general smiled.
“OK, Ken, you have my attention. What do you want?”
Many times during the following years, I would wait for the part of any meeting in D.C.
where someone in authority would say those exact words: “What do you want?”
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After the meeting with the assistant secretary, the Department of Labor expanded its services and programs and made all kinds of funding available to lots of small nonprofits around the country.
The general was a man of his word and did much of what I said was needed and what would help.
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Chapter 7: When Johnny Comes Marching Home(less)
The Department of Veterans Affairs was hosting a national summit in Washington, D.C. in February of 2004 on the subject of homeless veterans. I saw this event as the perfect time and place to get more national attention and more federal funding allocated to help out the tens of thousands of homeless veterans around the country who were sleeping under bridges and in their carsby again, using a little guerilla theatre.
I had just finished reading a book about the World War I veterans and the Bonus March they had organized, when they demanded the bonus monies promised to them after serving in the Great War.
We can do our own Bonus March, I thought. We can replicate the March of WWI veterans in 1932 and bring thousands of homeless veterans from the greater D.C. area, organize them into a group, have them march in formation, and end right in front of the VA headquarters. We’d let the VA know that a summit about homelessness was good, but programs and funding were better. That was the seed for “When Johnny Comes Marching Homeless Again, Hurrah!”
An event of this magnitude and the logistics behind getting this done were huge.
On my staff were two crackerjack gals, Lori Rubin and Tempie Thompson, who did ninety-eight percent of everything. All I mostly did was media and fundraising for the costs associated with the event and attempted to stay out of their way.
Our bean counter at the shelter made us a budget and it would cost (if we did what we thought we could do) for parade permits, police details, rentals of trucks, buses and cars and general logistics and travel, hotel rooms and meals, somewhere north of one hundred thousand dollars. That was, and still is, a lot of money.
I remembered the guy in New York who offered us the hotel deal during the democratic convention. I called him up and said, “Can you help?”
Bud Bushani said, “I’ll take care of the entire thing.”
What a miracle.
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The logistics involved getting vets from Boston, New York, Philly, Baltimore, and the greater D.C. area assembled in a park across the street from the White House were enormous. It was a piece of work and a sight to see.
After the advance staff arrived in D.C. the day before the event, I was meeting with Lori and Tempie at the hotel in D.C. and we were looking at the weather.
“It’s going to rain,” they both said.
I called RR&L back in Boston who was scheduled to have the supply truck leave at around 11pm that night and said, “How many ponchos do we have in storage?”
He said he would call me right back and he did, and said we have almost two thousand as we just got them from GSA surplus and they are still in the boxes. The GSA surplus guy of new England was a godsend and we had all kinds of stuff offered to useven a parade tank.
Add all of those boxes onto the truck right now, I said. We’re going to need them.
The next morning, while we prepared to receive the buses and trucks and staff at the assembly point, the supply truck that had traveled all night now had ponchos to hand out to the first two thousand lucky homeless vets. It was just the thing as it made the whole event seem more organized, now that I think about it.
We were scheduled to march from the Department of Veterans Affairs main headquarters that was under renovation (“wreck world”) to the temporary headquarters where the VA secretary was located, known as “tech world.”
This was a twelve-block march and the order of march was being handled by the senior staff. We culled out of the homeless vets assembled anyone with a rank of E-7 or higher and gave them command of a full company of eighty vets. We had over seventy-five companies fully staffed.
We marched eight across and ten deep per company and it was amazing as I heard the calls: “Alpha company, form up here, Bravo company form up here, and Charlie company form up here.”
One of the vets, an E-8 said, “Sir, we need another battalion designated as we are now at full battalion strength.”
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Now, I was an E-4 in the military and knew when I was in over my head. I handed this vet a radio and said, “Top, you’re in charge of getting this whole march on its legs. Anyone gives you any grief, call me on this radio. My handle is “Command One” and I will tell whoever gets in your way to stand down.”
We also had trucks and buses and a flatbed eighteen-wheeler with concert speakers and a podium and microphone on it. All of this sounds simple to organize, but without this guy stepping forward and taking charge, it would never have been done.
At the same time, Lori and Tempie were logistics masters and soon, right around 10am, the D.C. police leading the march with four police cars gave us the “You’re good to go”
signal and off we went.
Our honor guard, in full uniform and with no ponchos, was leading us.
Following this honor guard we had a twenty-one-man weapons detail, again in uniform, no ponchos, carrying the mock rifles we used for funerals, and this was followed by the First Battalion of Homeless Vets, followed by the sound truck (eighteen-wheeler) and the Second Battalion of Homeless Vets and then buses, and the Third Battalion and more trucks and on an on. The entire compliment was just over six thousand strong and we had maybe thirty trucks and buses.
Since it was raining (a light rain, but cold), we didn’t have many people on the streets, but we could look into the office building windows as we marched along and see signs saying “Support Our Troops” and “God Bless America” and some that said, “Shame on our government for so many homeless veterans” and people were crowding at windows.
Some of the streets had office buildings on both sides and it was law firms and the usual D.C. businesses of the government and I saw a few of the women crying as we marched by.
We made a turn to march by the White House when all of a sudden my radio crackled.
“Command one, command one, you’re needed at the front of the march, on the double please, the Secret Service wants to talk to you.”
Jesus, the Secret Service, what the hell did we do? I wondered.
I made my way from the rear of the march, where I was checking on the caboose elements of the march, to very front, and sure enough, in trench coats with the radio things in their ears, were maybe a half dozen agents of the Secret Service.
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“You need to surrender your weapons right now,” said the guy who appeared to be in charge.
“What, I need to what?” I said.
“You need to surrender the weapons right now, from those veterans”he pointed at the weapons detail “and when your march goes by, and you have turned the corner over there”and he pointed like a block or two away “we will return them to you.”
One of the agents took me aside. “Look, this is no bullshit, do as he says, or this whole thing will be shut down. All of us are veterans and we know how important what you’re doing is, so do as we ask and we will make sure the boss hears about this.”
I went to the commander of the honor guard and told him to have his weapons detail place their mock rifles in the trunk of the big black SUV that seemed to have come from out of nowhere.
This all took maybe twenty minutes and during this time, we had “When Johnny Comes Marching Home Again” like a theme song on the speakers of the flat bed. The vets waiting in line, who actually were standing in the rain, started to sing, but they put the words
“When Johnnie Comes Marching Homeless Again” into the song and I smiled.
Radio, TV, and print reporters were asking me what had happened with the Secret Service, when all of a sudden the order of “all clear” was given and the march continued.
I told all the media to check in with Lori and Tempie, and I resumed my walk to the back of the march, checking each and every company as I went by.
Now, I graduated from boot camp of the United States Army in 1971 and was in a military parade for that event, and that had maybe five hundred graduates at Ft. Dix, but this march was not rehearsed for weeks like that graduation was, but done impromptuand I was beaming. It seemed that each homeless vet knew that what we were doing was important. The order of march was tight, and a formation for each company had someone walking on the outside calling cadence. It must have looked like this was planned and practiced a hundred times. It wasn’t.
As I went down the order of march, it seemed the first two thousand homeless vets wore ponchos and the rest were just marching in their coats in the rain. I had an appreciation of how the Civil War generals of the South must have felt. I had no poncho but 48
was wearing a Court Street all-weather jacket when I saw the old vet. He had to be in his late eighties I thought, and here he was, marching with us at the back of the march, and he was in a light coatsoaked throughand no hat.
I called on the radio and got the supply truck.
Do we have a field jacket on the truck? I asked
No sir, we have no jackets or any ponchos left.
I asked for RR&L to come find me at the end of the march.
When he showed up he was wearing his poncho.
Take this old vet and get him onto one of the trucks, I said, riding in the cab with the heat on.
But right there, in front of me, RR&L took off his poncho. His shirt was dry. He took off his shirt and I watched him take this old guy’s coat off, then his wet shirt. He put his dry shirt and then the poncho onto this old guy.
“I got this problem handled, boss,” said RR&L.
I was never so proud of anything I ever saw. I knew then that we were brothers.
My radio was crackling again with all kinds of reports and requests. I halted the march for ten minutes for a coffee break.
The canteen truck was loaded with hot coffee and urns of steaming hot chocolate and I thought it was a good time to have that process started. A squad from each company came and was handed the coffee and hot chocolate for that company. I was amazed. The canteen truck was staffed by mess sergeants that were again culled from the ranks and I was thankful for Lori and Tempie who had made another decision that made me look good.
Our supply truck was also carrying five thousand MREs and I said if anyone is hungry, pass those out too.
We were two blocks from the VA headquarters and I had a small advance team of scouts going out in front of the march calling me on the radio from time to time to report on what was in front of us.
The lead scout said, “You need to come to the front of the march right now.”
“What’s up?” I said.
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“You’re not going to believe this,” said the scout I had placed in charge. “We just came from the VA headquarters and they’re evacuating the building.”
“Evacuating? Was there a fire reported?”
“No, they’re evacuating the VA headquarters because of us! They think we’re going to storm the building.”
“No waywhy do you say that?” I asked.
These scouts were hand picked by me in advance and while they were homeless vets, they were not dressed in ponchos and they were smart. They had come from Boston and the leader and one talking to me had actually been a Marine scout sniper in Vietnam.
He said, “We got to the building and all of a sudden tons of people were leaving and pretty soon it was a swarm of people, all walking fast and almost running out. I saw two guys talking and one had a Marine baseball cap on and I said, ‘What’s happening?’ This guy who worked in the building said, ‘Everyone has been evacuated because the homeless vets are going to attack and storm the building.’”
My radio was cracking again saying the cops wanted us to keep the march moving and I said “Saddle up” and told the scouts to keep giving me any Intel they could find.
We now were one block from the VA and there were tons of people lined up on both sides of the street, thousands it seemed, and most were VA employees who I am sure were wondering what the hell we were going to do.
It was like the accident-on-the-highway syndrome had taken effect and they all wanted to see what we were going to do.
By a complete coincidence, Tempie Thompson had a dear family friend named Kari who worked at the VA headquarters as a senior policy analyst. Years later I was told that everyone at the VA headquarters went to their windows to take a peek while we were still blocks away, and Kari was shocked to see Tempie in the crowd making its way to the VA on the protest march.
The honor guard and the weapons detail made its way to the front of the VA headquarters and turned and wheeled to be facing the front door. The weapons detail was right behind them and I could see for the first time that they were all soaked to the bone.
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The First Battalion of Homeless Vets kept marching and when they got a half block away, they too wheeled and closed ranks.
Other marching elements let the sound truck advance, which was still blaring out
“When Johnnie Comes Marching Home Again.” It pulled up right next to the honor guard.
Other trucks, buses, and the rest of the homeless veteran marchers all came together under the direction of the E-8 whom I had placed in charge at the beginning of the march. It was a sight to see.
Now standing in front of the VA headquarters in Washington D.C. were thousands of homeless veterans, all in formation, and as a result, the VA evacuated the building. I was stunned at the sight.
Lori and Tempie had written a statement for me to read and it was less a rant and more a demand that the veterans administration fund more programs and open empty beds at VA hospitals to those who were homeless when it was snowing or raining out. I remember getting ready to read this prepared statement when my scout got me on the radio.
Sir, here comes Jesse Brown he said.
Sure enough, walking down the front steps of the VA headquarters was VA Secretary Jesse Brown.
Jesse was someone I knew and respected.
A combat wounded Marine from Vietnam, Jesse was an advocate for all veterans for many years and someone whom all veterans respected.
We had a set of stairs at the back end of the flat bed, so you could simply walk up onto the truck and get to a microphone. A couple of times I had walked up and down during the course of the march myself.
I watched as Jesse, and Jesse alone, walked up those steps.
“Mr. Secretary,” I said, sticking out my hand, “Welcome to the project to shelter homeless veterans.”
“Hello Ken,” and he took his left hand and shook mine (his wound from Vietnam was to his right arm). “Would you allow me to have a few words with the vets?”
“Absolutely, sir.” And I stepped away from the microphone.
Jesse welcomed all of those marching. “Brothers,” he said, “I know that most of you feel that the VA does not care and you have been forgotten. I give you my solemn promise that 51
we are going to increase funding for projects to help you, all of you, and I want you to know you have a friend who sits in the chair of the secretary of veteran’s affairs.”
The assembled vetswet, cold and in formationlet out a cheer.
Jesse turned to me and said, “Ken, nobody else could have pulled this off.” He told me he got a call from the White House that we were on our way to his offices. “I’m impressed,” he said. “I thought because of the rain you might have postponed, but I can see that you brought your grunts.”
“Mr. Secretary, this is in no way a reflection on you,” I said. “And I want you to know, Democrat or Republican, this is nothing more than me showing you a small sample of what is out there nationwide.”
Jesse thanked me again and walked off the platform to an audience with some of his senior staff, all in trench coats and hats and umbrellas; and I proceeded to give my speech.
Again there was a huge cheer from the vets.
We ended the march at the very park where we started and the supply truck handed out all the MREs and amazingly the rain stopped and the sun started to shine. I saw that as a good sign and prepared myself for the coming three days. We were guests of the secretary of veterans’ affairs at the Homeless Veterans’ Summit and I was sure there were more things to happen.
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