After working at the shelter for a number of years, I began to see patterns of pathology among the homeless vets. These were guys who were once fully functioning human beings.
They were trained to kill and then thrown into an environment of unimaginable stress.
Then they were discharged from the military and asked to become normal healthy citizens overnight.
Many vets were able to return home and lead productive lives. The guys who found their way to the shelter couldn’t make the transition. Without societal support, they fell victim to a wide variety of addictions and diseases. The struggle became too much and they dropped out of society to live on the streets, and in many cases the only crutch they had to get them from one day to the next was their addiction.
While at the shelter we gave every vet the respect they deservedand often received nowhere elsefor me and my staff the emotional toll of dealing with these shattered men, once young and vital and considered our country’s finest and now reduced to homeless misery, was too much. We had to create some emotional distance and make sense of the chaos in our minds.
In response to what I was experiencing every day, I began to compartmentalize to myself each vet that entered the program. I would place them into one of a series of tribes that I had imagined in my mind. This sorting process made it possible for me to create appropriate responses to a wide variety of problems.
The Tribe of the Alcoholians, as I called them, was the largest tribe of homeless veterans. These tribe members had one thing in common: they drowned their pain in alcohol.
There was the Tribe of the Methadonians, and this tribe was comprised of former heroin addicts that had been weaned off of heroin and switched to the use of methadone.
This tribe comprised the hardcore street homeless and there was a network and hierarchy of Methadonians that saw each other every day as they went to clinics to get their daily dose of methadone. This tribe was brutal. It was Methadonians who found the new fresh 53
homeless out on the streets, veteran and non-veteran alike, and preyed on them either at shelters or on the street. Methadonians usually traveled in a pack and usually there was one who was the pack leader. Whenever I encountered them on the street they reminded me of a pack of snow wolves.
There was the tribe of the Neuroliptians and Psychotropians, and this tribe was comprised mostly of psych clients. They usually had glassy eyes and a bucket of pills given to them by the VA. The members of this tribe came in all shapes and sizes. Some took very good care of themselves and others would spend the night sleeping underneath a bridge because they would skip off of their meds and not remember where they were or where they were going.
In addition to these tribes, there was a small group of vets who were newly homelesstypically they had been kicked out of the house by a wife or girlfriend. I came to see them as the tribe of the Virgins. On the streets of large cities the Methadonians sought out Virgins at train stations, bus stations, and late at night in parks and parking garages.
Usually the fresh homeless were reluctant to admit their predicament, and many quickly fell prey to the street-savvy Methadonians.
Some vets were members of more than one group, such as the Virgin vet who had been kicked out of his girlfriend’s apartment because he was an addict or she couldn’t handle his violent post-traumatic stress episodes.
There was a policy at the shelter that if you presented as intoxicated or if SAC
(substance abuse counselors) had any suspicion that you were hooked on some drug, you were tested on the spot and given a choice: Detox or get out.
I speak about homelessness as a business and the detox side of homelessness was big business. Most alcohol-addicted vets took upwards of thirty days to wean themselves off of the dependency of alcohol. During this time they more often than not were in a detox facility that charged the insurance of the homeless (Medicaid), or if the vet were lucky enough to get into a VA detox, the same thing occurredyou and I, with our taxes, paid for this service. What always amazed me, but shouldn’t have, was once the veteran was dried out, the detox facility usually sent them right back into the lion’s den, right back onto the streets with little to no follow up.
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Let’s take a look at some math. If a detox program averages thirty days, and if the insurance paid $125 per day (I think it’s more), then the average detox stay for an Alcoholian was $3,750.00.
I know off the top of my head that vets we serviced sometime needed three, four, and maybe ten detoxes to get free of alcohol. You can see the investment.
Only those who have been touched by the effects of someone they love being an alcoholic can fully appreciate what I am telling you. It’s as if the veteran fell down Alice’s hole and what you thought you knew, you didn’t.
Ninety percent of all the vets who presented at intake at the shelter were drug or alcohol addicted.
Ninety percent of those were Alcoholians.
It would seem that if anyone wanted to get serious about making inroads with the homeless veteran, one of the first things they would want to do is to increase the capacity of detox beds nationwide. The larger the city or region, the more need for detox beds.
The second thing you would want to do is to ensure that upon discharge, the homeless veteran was placed in a program of some kind. Halfway house, sober house, something that allowed the veteran to continue on a path of recovery. It’s a huge gap in the treatment system and one that is as prevalent today as it was twenty years ago.
Homelessness is a business. Detox facilities get fed clients from the population of the homeless. I would venture to say that they get better than half of all their clients from this environment. Someone or some agency should study this issue, as I am sure that hundreds of millions of dollars are spent each year drying out a homeless Alcoholian and then a month later, he checks into another facility.
When someone leaves detox there needs to be better aftercare planning. It’s a waste of time and effort to work hard to dry someone out and then send them right back to the exact same environment that got them alcohol addicted in the first place.
When it comes to detoxing a heroin addict the price increases and the success rate drops. Weaning someone off hard core drugs takes patience and medical care. What perplexes me is that no one has come up with a better option than methadone.
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I have first hand experience with the Methadonians. Each time a Methadonian goes and gets the dose of daily methadone, within an hour they are glassy eyed and most just want to nod off.
After seeing this at the shelter a number of times, I made a hard and fast rule: no sleeping during the day. This angered the tribe so much that one day they picketed the shelter. Most everyone who participated in this picket of the shelter were Methodonians, and it included tribe members from other shelters. There must have been sixty Methadonians who were walking in a formation like they were in a union picket line right outside of the shelter. All were chanting, “Hey, Hey, ho, ho, Ken Smith, has got to go.”
Mark found me and said, “The media is on the way and we need a plan.”
From inside the shelter it was hard to look out to the front of building, but I was alerted by security that a couple of TV trucks had just pulled up outside and a few print reporters were outside too.
I waited maybe ten minutes and walked right out the front door and approached the one Methadonian who I knew to be the “alpha” of the group. This guy (whom I will call Mike) was street savvy and I saw him talking to a TV reporter. A few of the group shouted
“It’s himIt’s Ken Smith,” and that caused the TV reporter to turn to me and the camera man too.
I walked up to Mike the Methadonian and said, “It’s a little chilly out here today Mike, so I’ve instructed the mess sergeant of the kitchen to serve you guys hot black coffee while you’re picketing,” and then told the TV reporter that this group of former heroin addicts were picketing the shelter because we wouldn’t let them come in and sleep during the day.
The TV reporter, sniffing a story said, “Are you discriminating against former addicts?”
“Absolutely not,” I said. “Each of the veterans in the shelter fought for the right of these guys to picket us, and while we disagree that taking heroin is a lifestyle that is good, they are all still veterans out here and when they decide to stop nodding off after taking drugs we will let them back in.”
The group again started with “Hey, Hey, ho, ho, Ken Smith, has got to go.”
Just then the mess sergeant walked out pushing a cart with a coffee urn and paper cups and said, “Hot coffeegetcha hot coffee here,” almost like he was at Fenway Park.
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That night, all three of the major TV stations played the picket of the shelter on the news and within ten minutes of it playing the phones at the shelter lit up.
“Good for you guysgood for you standing up to those jerks,” was the most frequent response.
“I was a heroin addict once, and you’re right, they need to get off methadone,” said a few.
Mostly, the big picket line was a bust.
And then there were the pills.
After having the shelter open a month or two, it was obvious to me that the pills that were handed out at the VA like Chiclets were a commodity that was traded on the streets.
In response, we started a program where every single vet needed to turn in all of his medication to “sick bay,” and each of the vets then had a container supplied where the meds were stored. We didn’t allow anyone to have anythingTylenol, aspirin, eye drops, nothing.
At first this was a huge pain in the ass. It meant that we were in charge of every veteran’s meds and since no one took their pills at the same time, the sick bay was always busy. At the same time, some of these pills were related to legitimate pain management, and that worried me.
Mark came up with a great idea and had the medics rotated around in the sickbay and nobody knew until that day what medic job they would get.
At the same time, Mark (who is very good with numbers) had an audit done on all the pills and he did this on no set schedule. One day it was on a Monday, and a week later on a Tuesday and then two weeks later on a Saturday.
During the time that we were handling the pills of the vets, not one vet complained about having his medication stolen.
It was a few months later that an older vet came up alongside of me in the dinner line and said, “You have no idea, do you?”
“Idea about what?”
“You have no idea how great it is that I don’t have to fend off the nitwits who were always after me for my pills. I have cancer and cancer pain and the VA has given me a 57
prescription that controls that pain and now, all I need to do is go to sick bay, sign out my dosage, and bingo, I am as right as rain.”
One tribe that didn’t like the new policy of handing over all your medication was the Neuroliptians and the Psychotropians. They were selling their pills out on the street and this policy put a dent on that quick.
At the same time, we saw an improvement in that tribe as nobody now had to remember to take their meds. There was a med call every evening at six o’clock and again at nine, and then the medic would do an audit to see who did and who didn’t come for their meds. We made a rule that if you missed med call twice, your privileges at the shelter were reduced. It had an impact.
In my introduction to this book, I wrote, “What we do to the vets who are psych problems and on the streets is borderline criminal.” That’s true then and it’s true now and someday, someone is going to formulate a better plan than handing a bucket of pills to someone who needs to take one a day, every day, whether they think they need it or not, because if they don’t, they rocket off to the dark side of the moon. Nobody should be in that position. What happens frequently is that they start feeling good, they don’t take the pill, and before you know it, they are baying at the very same moon the pill is helping to keep away.
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Chapter 9: The Rump Rangers’ Secret Meetings
Not all of the tribes were associated with drugs or destructive behavior. There was the tribe of the Rump Rangersthe homosexuals who had been in the service before the time of “Don’t ask, don’t tell.” They usually were fastidious in their appearance and if you didn’t know they were homeless, if someone didn’t tell you, you would think they lived in an apartment or had their own house. They usually kept to themselves and while there were a few openly gay vets who you could obviously tell were homosexual, the vast majority that I came to know didn’t talk or show any sign of their sexual proclivity. This was either because this was simply how they chose to present themselves, or it was because they had been conditioned by society and the military to suppress their sexuality. To be “outed” in Vietnam was not a positive life event, and could result in immediate discharge and even physical harm.
The tribe of the Rump Rangers has been stigmatized by society for too long. I don’t care what your personal sexual preference is. I don’t want you trying to push yours on me, and I won’t try to push mine on you.
I also don’t want to think of being in a foxhole with anyone other than someone who is an American. Sounds weird, because the argument that gays can’t serve is ludicrous. Gays have been in our military since the days of George Washington. Alexander the Great was gay, for God’s sake. It’s not about being gay when the bullets are flying, it’s about protecting each other because you’re an American.
Let those who think it’s wrong for gays to be in the military step forward and throw the first rock. You won’t find me in that pack.
Now, just because you’re gay doesn’t mean you should get anything extra either. If my use of the term Rump Ranger angers anyone, well, then you haven’t been around anyone who is gay. They call each other way more colorful things than that.
One night at around two o’clock I was awakened at home by a call from the overnight duty officer who said you better get in here right now, I have a huge problem.
When I asked what the problem was, he said security had broken up an orgy.
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Orgy? Oh my God, the vets brought women into the building?
No, that’s why you need to come in and I can explain when you get here.
I said I would be there as fast as I could. I lived in a suburb of Boston and it took me over an hour. Now in the middle of the night the streets of Boston are empty for the most part and as I drove into the shelter I was thinking that for some reason, one that I couldn’t fathom, someone had been hurt, and my mind raced.
I arrived at the shelter and was met by the duty officer at the front desk who said, now, you’re not going to believe this but we have sixteen guys in the vault downstairs. The supply vault with all the towels and linens.
Before World War II the shelter’s building was a bank, and in the basement were two huge bank vaults that had been in the building for over a hundred years. When I say these vaults were huge, I mean really huge. One had a door that was twelve feet tall and weighed twenty tons, and the other was big enough to park a dozen cars.
In one of these vaults we stored the most precious supplies that the shelter needed.
These were sundries for the most partthe disposables that you and I take for granted: soap bars, shampoo, toilet paper, sheets, towels, and pillow cases. Most of the daily mundane things that are in your home right now that you’re not thinking twice about were under lock and key because if they weren’t, they would disappear.
So that night we found a bunch of guys in the vault.
Were they stealing stuff? I asked.
No, they didn’t take anything, the duty officer told me as we made our way to the vault, but you got to see this for yourself.
Now, I knew that at the shelter there were homosexual vets, and to myself I called them the Rump Rangers. They worked in the laundry and kitchen, did a good job, and up until this very minute I had never had any problem with any of them.
As I turned the corner in the basement and saw the vault door open, I could see our security staff, the vet guards, all in uniform, and I thought to myself, this can’t be good.
Walking into the vault I was stunned.
Standing facing the wall were sixteen naked vets, all at attention, all butt naked, with vet guards holding billy clubs interspersed behind them.
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The captain of the guard was a guy named Bert, and I said, “Bert, what the hell is going on?”
“Sir!” he said. “Corporal Mitchell was on his rounds on his overnight detail when he heard sounds coming from the vault. When he investigated he found these veterans having a sexual orgy, sir. He came to me immediately and I activated the Broken Arrow plan as you have directed, sir. I woke all the vet guards and we came as a unit and lo and behold, these guys were doing wild thing to each other here in the vault. We had them all turn towards the wall and stand at attention until you could arrive, sir.”
Jesus Christ, I was stunned.
I recognized one of the Rump RangersStephen, the guy who volunteered to dress the old vet who had died a few months earlier. I said to the captain, “Have them all get dressed and when that one gets dressed, escort him to my office.”
I turned and left and thought to myself, holy shit, what the hell am I going to do about this?
I asked the duty officer to have someone from the kitchen bring me a pot of coffee, and I went to my office to wait.
Ten minutes later the captain of the guard and another vet guard brought Stephen into my office.
“You can wait outside,” I said to the captain of the guard.
When the door closed, I said to Stephen, “You want a coffee?” and I poured myself one.
‘Thank you sir, yes, I could use a coffee.”
“OK,” I said, “Now, tell me what happened.”
“Are you sure you really want to know this?”
“Yes, I‘m sure, and tell me the truth. I’ll be asking others the same question. For your information, they called me at home in the middle of the night, and now I’m here, and I will find out the truth. Be honest.” Then I added, “I remember you helped me with the old vet who died, so just blurt it out. Tell me.”
“It was our regular Thursday night get together.” He said.
“OK, when you say regular Thursday night get together, what do you mean by that?”
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“Well, I know you’re straight and I don’t want to insult you, but every Thursday night, at midnight, we gather in the linen vault and couple up.”
“And do what?”
“We do what you dowe have relations and we take care of each other and we listen and try to understand the latest information about AIDS. I don’t know what to tell youwe couple up.”
“And how long has this been going on?” I said.
“For as long as I’ve been here, and that’s been over a year.”
Holy shit, I thought to myself, that’s over fifty times and this is the first time anyone knew?
“So, what made this time different?” I said.
“Well, a new arrival, Daniel, you wouldn’t know him, well, he got excited and started to scream, and before we could stop him, well, the guard must have heard it, and then, the lights went on and the captain came in with all his men and bullied us against the wall.”
“So let me get this right. This happens every single Thursday night, and tonight someone who is new to the shelter screamed in excitement and one of the vet guards heard him, and that’s what got this whole thing started? That about it?”
Just then there was a knock on the door.
“Come in,” I said.
In came the captain of the guard.
“Sir, there are about twenty-five vets downstairs at the front desk right now demanding to see the vet you are interviewing. They’re loud and waking up everyone. Half the shelter is awake now and the duty officer is requesting you come to the front desk, he said it’s almost a riot.”
“Tell the duty officer I’ll be right there,” I said, and closed the door. “You know what this is about?”
“Yeah. They think they’re all going to be thrown out of the shelterbut the reason we’re here is because it’s the safest, cleanest, and most well run shelter in the city. And it’s sober, which is nothing like the other shelters and they know, well, they all know me and 62
they think you’re telling me right now that I am barred because I’m gay. They will do as you tell them, but you need to be fair and punish those of us in the vault and leave them alone.”
“Follow me,” I said.
We went downstairs and sure enough, as I got to the first floor I could hear the ruckus: Fucking fairies, you woke us up you fucking fairies, I am gonna kill your ass, and I heard others saying, fuck you, and all kinds of nasty things were being said.
“Attention on deck!” someone shouted.
I walked into the large dining room and there was almost the entire shelter in attendance. The vets from the basement were in a group, surrounded by about twenty vet guards.
“Gentlemen,” I said, “With the exception of the following people, everyone is go back to bed right now,“ and I pointed at the vets from the basement.
And there was a group of maybe twenty who were clearly Rump Rangers, and I said,
“They stay here tooeveryone else back to bed.”
One guy in the back of the room went crazy and said, “I don’t know who the fuck you are, but this is bullshit and I am gonna have me some trouble, as I got woken up by these assholes, so why don’t you just leave and let us handle this issue?”
I turned to Burt, the captain of the guard. “Have Grady escort this one out for me please,” I said.
Now Grady was six-foot-three and weighted in at over two hundred and seventy-five pounds and was as black as you can be black.
“Fuck you!” said the vet. “Who the fuck do you think you are?”
One vet said, “He’s the vet who started this place and you just stepped on your own dick. He’s the boss of all the bosses.”
The vet looked at me, looked at Grady and said, “I’m sorry, please don’t kick me out.”
I told Grady to have him put outside and he could return only at town meeting and make his case for readmission, which was in three days.
“Don’t you ever tell me what to do!” I shouted at him. “You think this is a game?”
I then turned and looked at everyone else and raised my voice again.
“I SAID GET TO FUCKIN’ BED!”
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The room cleared in three minutes.
I was left with the culprits, the vet guards, and twenty other Rump Rangers.
I told the captain to let all the guards also go to bed, that he had done a good job and I was fine with just Grady with me in the room. The captain thanked me and all the vet guards went back to bed.
“Now,” I said, pointing at the rest of the attendees, “I know. I know more than you think I know. I know about Thursday nights. You have violated the rules of this facility and each of you”and I pointed to the group who were in the vault “each of you is suspended from this facility for one week. When you return, you will be forced to go to the ‘cot squad’
and all of your privileges that you now have are gone. This takes effect immediately and you are to clear out your lockers, and be out of this building in thirty minutes.
“To the rest of you: I know you see the value of being here. It’s safe, it’s clean and nobody steals your stuff, and for once you have a place, a locker, hot showers, and a place to put your valuables. Now, you all will return to your beds right now and if I ever hear of anything like this happening again, you all will be sent out with the same penalty.”
Each of them looked at me for what seemed to be forever. I was expecting some push back and then suddenly they all left the room.
The only one remaining besides Grady and me was Stephen. “That was fair,” said Stephen, “and I’m truly sorry. Someday I hope you understand that we didn’t do this to hurt anybody.”
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Chapter 10: JD (Just Dog)
The shelter had been open less than a year when I got a call from the duty officer to come to the front desk. There’s a guy standing in front of me who wants to meet you, he said.
I made my way to the front desk and standing at the counter was a guy who looked like he had escaped from a Nazi concentration camp.
“Can I help you?” I asked.
“You Ken Smith?” he said.
“Yes.”
“My name is Roger and I’m a combat Vietnam veteran. I was a dog handler with the CAV
(1st Calvary Division) in ‘67-‘68. I’m here because I am about to