Phantom Blooper
11-09-03, 10:31 AM
As veteran deaths peak, a move is on to document their stories before it is too late
Sunday, November 09, 2003
By Cindi Lash, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In years past, Joseph Dugan would be spending this week coaxing his friend Glenn H. Rojohn to mesmerize a local school assembly with his account of crash-landing his bomber in Germany after sacrificing himself to save his crew.
This year, he's mourning the death of his friend in August, and the passing of dozens of other World War II veterans from around the region that he'd known before they passed away in recent months.
As director of Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum & Memorial in Oakland, Dugan befriended them and their families over the years, marveled at their wartime action and respected their peacetime accomplishments.
And he's grieved for them, and for all of the veterans from Allegheny County and around southwestern Pennsylvania who've died this year in what, by year's end, may be record-setting numbers.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, citing data from the 2000 U.S. census, estimates that 4,336 veterans from Allegheny County will die this year, at a rate of 10 to 12 each day. VA statistics project that this year's death toll among Allegheny County's veterans will be the highest of the decade and of the century's first quarter, with the count remaining around 4,300 deaths per year until 2006, then decreasing each year in greater numbers until 2026.
VA statistics also project that veteran deaths for the seven-county metropolitan area will peak next year, with 8,369 veterans expected to die. Most will be veterans of World War II in their 80s, and they will take with them the courage and resolve that enabled them to win that war, then to rebuild interrupted lives and revitalize their country.
World War II veteran Julius Falcon says farewell to William Fisher, 83, of North Huntingdon last month. Fisher was a staff sergeant in World War II. Falcon, 81, of Greensburg, has played "taps" at thousands of funerals for veterans since the war.
As Veterans Day approaches this week, those numbers will be on the minds of Dugan and other veterans advocates who look beyond inanimate statistics to see individual lives, and the imprint of incalculable service each of them has left.
"People I deal with daily are passing on," said Dugan, who in the days before Veterans Day often escorts veterans to speak about their wartime experiences in schools around the region.
"Each time that happens, it makes you sad [because] these are very wonderful people," he said. "As they pass, we lose a piece of history."
Of the 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.28 million live in Pennsylvania. Allegheny County is home to 128,354 of them; about 150,000 others live in the other six counties that make up the metropolitan region.
Among those veterans, 43,940 who live in Allegheny County and nearly 40,000 others in neighboring counties served during World War II. Their average age is 86, according to Michael Murphy, Allegheny County's assistant director for veterans affairs.
VA statistics for this decade show or project the rate of veteran deaths at about 4,000 each year. At that rate, nearly all of the county's World War II-era veterans are likely to be dead by 2013.
VA officials acknowledge that their projections are just that -- estimates based on census figures listing the number of all U.S. veterans and their life expectancy. But the projections also take into consideration that more U.S. veterans fought during World War II -- 16 million -- than in any other war, and that those veterans are nearing the end of their lives.
Both Dugan and analysts for American Legion, a national veterans organization, caution that they believe the VA projections for this year and next may be premature.
"The fault with the VA numbers is that they have to project for funding purposes, for medical benefits through their system, for burial allowances and insurance claims," Dugan said. "So they shoot for the high end."
Dugan and Murphy base their belief on the number of actual deaths reported to them in recent years by families who've applied for the $200 death benefit the county pays to all honorably discharged veterans who served during wartime. Those numbers indicate the number of veteran deaths has hovered around 3,000 in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.
This year, the county has issued the benefit to families of 2,540 veterans and expects to pay the benefit to about 400 others by the end of the year, Murphy said. The benefit is paid only to veterans who served in wartime, but that restriction applies to most of the older veterans who live in the county and who are dying at more frequent rates.
Dugan and other officials from the county's Veterans Affairs department instead predict that the peak year for veteran deaths probably will be 2007. At that point, Dugan said, most of the county's veterans will have lived 10 years beyond their life expectancy of 79 years.
"From the Civil War on, this region has always had a large concentration of veterans [due to] the family ethic and a strong sense of patriotic duty," he said. "But we expect a lot of changes in the next four years. More people will be passing on."
That realization is spurring local and national veterans advocates to stress the value of programs that document aging veterans' memories on paper or tape so that they won't be lost to future generations.
The Library of Congress offers new storytelling packets that enable veterans to add their memories to its Veterans History Project. VA officials, too, urge relatives of veterans to press their parents, grandparents, uncles or aunts to write, record or videotape their stories in their own words.
Dugan also arranges for veterans to share hair-raising, humorous or heartbreaking stories with school or community groups that often are full of people too young to remember World War II, the Korean War or Vietnam.
Before Rojohn died at age 81, Dugan recalled, local students would sit silent and open-mouthed while the former Elizabeth Township man told of landing his B-17 bomber after the plane had collided with another bomber in the air.
Rojohn kept the two jammed planes aloft long enough for both crews to bail out, then crash-landed and was captured in Germany. He later received the Purple Heart, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and was inducted into the Hall of Valor at Soldiers & Sailors.
"I told the kids with purple hair and pins through their noses that [World War II veterans] died for them to have that right," Dugan said. "When you take real live, animate people to schools and show the kids pictures of the vital, beautiful young people they were, the kids realize these aren't just some old guys in suits. It gives them a different perspective of history.
"We're losing that now," he said. "We need to document what they did before they're all gone."
The numbers of aging veterans also is spurring construction of a national cemetery on former farm land in Cecil. Planners hope to break ground on the cemetery next year and to have grave sites available for burials by next fall.
It is now one of five planned for major urban areas that lack a national burying ground for its veterans. The others will be in Atlanta, Detroit, Miami and Sacramento, Calif.; another opened at Fort Sill in Oklahoma in November 2001.
Plans for the cemetery grew out of a 1987 VA report to Congress in which Pittsburgh was one of 10 areas not served by a national or state veterans burying ground. It will be one of three in Pennsylvania; the other two are near Philadelphia and Fort Indiantown Gap near Annville, Lebanon County.
The VA's National Cemetery Administration plans to build the cemetery on 292 acres of what had been farmland owned by members of the Morgan family on Morgan Road in Cecil. It wrapped up the $4.06 million purchase of the property in April, and awarded a $662,369 contract to Marshall Tyler Rausch, a Ross architectural firm, to develop a master plan for the cemetery.
That plan should be completed this winter, allowing cemetery administration officials to put the construction contract out for bid next summer and award it in the fall, said Dan Tucker, a budget and planning officer for the cemetery administration. The VA has requested $16 million for construction costs.
The cemetery administration also plans to have the contractor develop a "fast-track" section by immediately readying several acres for burials. Tucker said he was hopeful that section would be completed before the end of 2004, although the entire cemetery probably won't be finished until the next year.
(cont)
Sunday, November 09, 2003
By Cindi Lash, Pittsburgh Post-Gazette
In years past, Joseph Dugan would be spending this week coaxing his friend Glenn H. Rojohn to mesmerize a local school assembly with his account of crash-landing his bomber in Germany after sacrificing himself to save his crew.
This year, he's mourning the death of his friend in August, and the passing of dozens of other World War II veterans from around the region that he'd known before they passed away in recent months.
As director of Soldiers & Sailors National Military Museum & Memorial in Oakland, Dugan befriended them and their families over the years, marveled at their wartime action and respected their peacetime accomplishments.
And he's grieved for them, and for all of the veterans from Allegheny County and around southwestern Pennsylvania who've died this year in what, by year's end, may be record-setting numbers.
The U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs, citing data from the 2000 U.S. census, estimates that 4,336 veterans from Allegheny County will die this year, at a rate of 10 to 12 each day. VA statistics project that this year's death toll among Allegheny County's veterans will be the highest of the decade and of the century's first quarter, with the count remaining around 4,300 deaths per year until 2006, then decreasing each year in greater numbers until 2026.
VA statistics also project that veteran deaths for the seven-county metropolitan area will peak next year, with 8,369 veterans expected to die. Most will be veterans of World War II in their 80s, and they will take with them the courage and resolve that enabled them to win that war, then to rebuild interrupted lives and revitalize their country.
World War II veteran Julius Falcon says farewell to William Fisher, 83, of North Huntingdon last month. Fisher was a staff sergeant in World War II. Falcon, 81, of Greensburg, has played "taps" at thousands of funerals for veterans since the war.
As Veterans Day approaches this week, those numbers will be on the minds of Dugan and other veterans advocates who look beyond inanimate statistics to see individual lives, and the imprint of incalculable service each of them has left.
"People I deal with daily are passing on," said Dugan, who in the days before Veterans Day often escorts veterans to speak about their wartime experiences in schools around the region.
"Each time that happens, it makes you sad [because] these are very wonderful people," he said. "As they pass, we lose a piece of history."
Of the 25 million veterans in the United States, 1.28 million live in Pennsylvania. Allegheny County is home to 128,354 of them; about 150,000 others live in the other six counties that make up the metropolitan region.
Among those veterans, 43,940 who live in Allegheny County and nearly 40,000 others in neighboring counties served during World War II. Their average age is 86, according to Michael Murphy, Allegheny County's assistant director for veterans affairs.
VA statistics for this decade show or project the rate of veteran deaths at about 4,000 each year. At that rate, nearly all of the county's World War II-era veterans are likely to be dead by 2013.
VA officials acknowledge that their projections are just that -- estimates based on census figures listing the number of all U.S. veterans and their life expectancy. But the projections also take into consideration that more U.S. veterans fought during World War II -- 16 million -- than in any other war, and that those veterans are nearing the end of their lives.
Both Dugan and analysts for American Legion, a national veterans organization, caution that they believe the VA projections for this year and next may be premature.
"The fault with the VA numbers is that they have to project for funding purposes, for medical benefits through their system, for burial allowances and insurance claims," Dugan said. "So they shoot for the high end."
Dugan and Murphy base their belief on the number of actual deaths reported to them in recent years by families who've applied for the $200 death benefit the county pays to all honorably discharged veterans who served during wartime. Those numbers indicate the number of veteran deaths has hovered around 3,000 in the years 2000, 2001 and 2002.
This year, the county has issued the benefit to families of 2,540 veterans and expects to pay the benefit to about 400 others by the end of the year, Murphy said. The benefit is paid only to veterans who served in wartime, but that restriction applies to most of the older veterans who live in the county and who are dying at more frequent rates.
Dugan and other officials from the county's Veterans Affairs department instead predict that the peak year for veteran deaths probably will be 2007. At that point, Dugan said, most of the county's veterans will have lived 10 years beyond their life expectancy of 79 years.
"From the Civil War on, this region has always had a large concentration of veterans [due to] the family ethic and a strong sense of patriotic duty," he said. "But we expect a lot of changes in the next four years. More people will be passing on."
That realization is spurring local and national veterans advocates to stress the value of programs that document aging veterans' memories on paper or tape so that they won't be lost to future generations.
The Library of Congress offers new storytelling packets that enable veterans to add their memories to its Veterans History Project. VA officials, too, urge relatives of veterans to press their parents, grandparents, uncles or aunts to write, record or videotape their stories in their own words.
Dugan also arranges for veterans to share hair-raising, humorous or heartbreaking stories with school or community groups that often are full of people too young to remember World War II, the Korean War or Vietnam.
Before Rojohn died at age 81, Dugan recalled, local students would sit silent and open-mouthed while the former Elizabeth Township man told of landing his B-17 bomber after the plane had collided with another bomber in the air.
Rojohn kept the two jammed planes aloft long enough for both crews to bail out, then crash-landed and was captured in Germany. He later received the Purple Heart, was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross and was inducted into the Hall of Valor at Soldiers & Sailors.
"I told the kids with purple hair and pins through their noses that [World War II veterans] died for them to have that right," Dugan said. "When you take real live, animate people to schools and show the kids pictures of the vital, beautiful young people they were, the kids realize these aren't just some old guys in suits. It gives them a different perspective of history.
"We're losing that now," he said. "We need to document what they did before they're all gone."
The numbers of aging veterans also is spurring construction of a national cemetery on former farm land in Cecil. Planners hope to break ground on the cemetery next year and to have grave sites available for burials by next fall.
It is now one of five planned for major urban areas that lack a national burying ground for its veterans. The others will be in Atlanta, Detroit, Miami and Sacramento, Calif.; another opened at Fort Sill in Oklahoma in November 2001.
Plans for the cemetery grew out of a 1987 VA report to Congress in which Pittsburgh was one of 10 areas not served by a national or state veterans burying ground. It will be one of three in Pennsylvania; the other two are near Philadelphia and Fort Indiantown Gap near Annville, Lebanon County.
The VA's National Cemetery Administration plans to build the cemetery on 292 acres of what had been farmland owned by members of the Morgan family on Morgan Road in Cecil. It wrapped up the $4.06 million purchase of the property in April, and awarded a $662,369 contract to Marshall Tyler Rausch, a Ross architectural firm, to develop a master plan for the cemetery.
That plan should be completed this winter, allowing cemetery administration officials to put the construction contract out for bid next summer and award it in the fall, said Dan Tucker, a budget and planning officer for the cemetery administration. The VA has requested $16 million for construction costs.
The cemetery administration also plans to have the contractor develop a "fast-track" section by immediately readying several acres for burials. Tucker said he was hopeful that section would be completed before the end of 2004, although the entire cemetery probably won't be finished until the next year.
(cont)