Agent honors vets, recognizes Purple Heart recipients

MONTAGUE, Mass. -- They come to Leo Parent with their problems.

Some lost limbs in combat. Nearly all found nightmares that won't let them sleep.

For the past 22 years, Parent has become their informal social worker, bureaucratic navigator and indispensable ally. He's one of about 250 veterans' agents in Massachusetts, and is assigned to 24 Franklin County towns and the hundreds of veterans from World War II through Iraq who live there. The oldest is in his 90s. The youngest is 22.

A few of them are having trouble with their wives or landlords. Others aren't getting the benefits the government owes them. Many can't find their way back to who they were before war took them from home.

Along with getting veterans the medical care, psychiatric help and money they're owed from the federal government, he's given them something beyond what the law says they're entitled to: public recognition.

In ceremonies held in schools and town halls around his western Massachusetts county during the past four years, Parent has made a special effort to honor those who have received Purple Hearts, the medal given to soldiers wounded or killed in combat.

"I was a bit flabbergasted when I heard what Leo what was doing," said Hugh Der, 56, of Bernardston. Der was given his Purple Heart by a commanding officer who left the medal on his hospital bed. He had just had a leg amputated after his helicopter was shot down in Vietnam on July 18, 1969.

Der now displays his medal in a shadowbox in his bedroom. Parent is one of the few people to make a fuss about it.

"You get wounded, you get the Purple Heart, they shake your hand and that's the last you hear of it," Der said.

He was one of the 18 Purple Heart recipients honored recently in Parent's fourth event to salute the medal holders. Just a week before Memorial Day, more than 100 people filled the rows of folding chairs in the Sunderland Elementary School gymnasium and applauded as the veterans from World War II, Korea and Vietnam were recognized with certificates signed by state lawmakers, congressmen and the governor.

They shook Parent's hand under a basketball hoop hanging from the ceiling, many walking to the podium with backs bent by old age and limps inflicted by bullets and bombs. A half dozen weren't there -- their awards instead collected by widows, children or brothers left to speak for the dead.

"I owed my brother a debt of gratitude, so I wanted him honored in one of these ceremonies before it was too late," said Jim Girard. The 72-year-old was 9 when his brother, Francis Girard, was killed in Italy during World War II. "I'm glad Leo's been doing this."

Parent first dealt with combat vets while stationed at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri. He enlisted in 1966, but never went to Vietnam. Instead, he was assigned to work at the base's recreation center, where he taught shop classes to those returning from overseas tours.

"It was better than working in the supply room," said Parent, now 59. "And I realized I like working with people and getting involved in their lives."

He left the Army in 1969 and returned to his hometown of Erving. He went to nearby Greenfield Community College, worked in a few of the area's paper and machine mills and served on several town boards in Erving.

When the state Department of Veterans' Services needed a new representative in Franklin County in 1985, Parent took the job.

"In any week, I have 25 people come in who say they didn't get their medication, they didn't get their benefit checks, they can't find a doctor," he said. "But I'm fortunate that after 22 years I have a lot of connections so I could get these people help pretty easily."

His newest clients -- 13 soldiers who have returned from Iraq and Afghanistan during the past three years -- are some of the hardest cases he's had.

"I hear a lot from their wives or their moms and dads," Parent said. "They say he was a jolly guy when he left, and now that he's back, he's not the same."

An early advocate for the war, his thoughts have since changed.

"If we knew then what we know now, I would not support going over there," he said. "But no matter what, I support our troops."

He became outraged when the Pentagon began enforcing a policy in 2003 banning media coverage of America's war dead as their remains arrive in flag-draped caskets.

"It should be in our face so we know the sacrifices people are making for the country," he said.

So he started an awareness campaign of his own. Using the lawn in front of the public library in the Turners Falls neighborhood, Parent planted one 11-by-12-inch nylon American flag for each U.S. soldier killed in Iraq and Afghanistan.

He ran out of room at 1,500, but keeps track of the totals with a tote board on the lawn.

As of this past week, these were the numbers: 3,431 killed in Iraq; 390 killed in Afghanistan. And the figure that will mean more work for him and other veterans' agents throughout the country: 31,263 wounded in action.

"It's not a political statement," he said of his scoreboard of death and injury that sits along one of the busiest roads in Turners Falls. "I just want people to be aware when they're driving to work that we have people in Iraq and Afghanistan who are dying."

No matter what passers-by make of the display, it's nearly impossible to question Parent's commitment to the troops who come home.

"He's the most active veterans' agent in the state," said Richard Delmasto, an aide to U.S. Rep. John Olver. "The Purple Heart events that he's done are an indication of the kind of respect he has for the veterans."

The idea to start recognizing those medal holders came in 2003, when the U.S. Postal Service issued a Purple Heart stamp.

His goal was to make sure every Purple Heart recipient in his jurisdiction was honored not only with a medal but a ceremony as well. The government does not keep a list of medal holders, so Parent had to comb military records with his administrative assistant, Jody Wallenius, and spread the news of their mission through a media and word-of-mouth campaign.

He'll never know if he got to everyone, but he's confident he came pretty close. After last weekend's ceremony 193 veterans had been commemorated.

Most of them first met Parent when they needed help, and some still do. But during the ceremonies, the veterans' agent was able to forget for a moment about their problems and focus instead on their service.

(Copyright 2007 by The Associated Press. All Rights Reserved.)