Area veterans to fight state's closure of outreach centers

NEWS ITEM FROM THE ASSOCIATED PRESS: Five Pennsylvania centers that help predominantly older veterans in rural areas apply for disability compensation, pensions and health care will close Jan. 1 after nearly 29 years, a state labor spokesman said.

The decision to close all five Governor's Veterans Outreach and Assistance Center offices was difficult, but necessary given the economy, said Department of Labor and Industry spokesman Troy Thompson.

The federally funded program has offices in Harrisburg, Boyertown, Erie, Greensburg, and West Pittston and a $900,000 annual budget.

Think of them as Ruth's Army.

The veterans who love Ruth Gonzalez are organizing to battle for her the way she fought for them. Their new war is for the woman who did right by them when no one else would or could.

In 22 years as regional representative/employment coordinator for the Governor's Veterans Outreach and Assistance Center in West Pittston, Gonzalez has helped thousands of veterans obtain benefits, pensions, military records, jobs, counseling and care.

The 55-year-old retired Marine from Wilkes-Barre is local veterans' version of George Bailey, who finds out when he's in trouble how many friends he has in the classic movie "It's a Wonderful Life."

The state is closing the outreach center in West Pittston and four other outposts across Pennsylvania, putting Gonzalez on the unemployment line. (The area served by the West Pittston office includes Bradford and Sullivan counties.)

"My sadness from seeing her losing her job is because she's helped me already," said Bob Graham, 61, of Taylor, a former Army staff sergeant who fought in Vietnam and gained substantial new benefits because of Gonzalez's intervention. "And I know the woman that she is, and I pray for her every night to get her job back so she can help the veterans that are coming back from Iraq now."

The outreach centers cost Pennsylvania taxpayers between $900,000 and $950,000 a year - about three-thousands of 1 percent of the current state budget. They are wrapping up open cases, and will close officially Dec. 31, victims of a tight state budget.

Troy Thompson, a spokesman for the Department of Labor and Industry, which oversaw the centers, said the centers started opening in 1981 to find veterans training, education and jobs. The money is being shifted to state CareerLink centers, where more than 80 staff members will devote time to veterans.

Thompson said many of the center's other services - benefits counseling, for example - are provided by either the federal Department of Veterans Affairs or county veterans offices.

But when the members of Ruth's Army hear they can get the same service elsewhere, they think, "Not like Ruth Gonzalez."

Local elected officials will probably hear personally from them soon. When Gonzalez lost her job, they organized a petition drive.

"We want to give it to the governor," said Mario Tomarelli, 80, a Korean War veteran who left the Army as sergeant first class with shrapnel in his hip and post-traumatic stress in his life.

In 2004, she found more detailed service records that proved Hodge deserved a disability payment four times what he received for almost 40 years.

"She's just a beautiful person, a beautiful person that's doing her job because she cares," Hodge said. "I talked to her after she lost her job. She cried. She wasn't crying because she lost her paycheck. She was crying because she has cases she wasn't going to be able to fulfill. And she says, 'Some way, I'm going to find a way to do them for nothing, and I'm going to get them completed.'"

When the vets talk about Gonzalez, tears well in their eyes.

A fellow veteran suggested Fred Schaller, 77, of Greentown, go see Gonzalez. Decades ago, the former Army private first class gave up on getting veterans benefits because federal officials said a fire destroyed his military records.

"She said, 'Yeah, the records burned, but that's not your problem,'" Schaller said. When he finally saw a Veterans Affairs doctor, the doctor had a 1950 letter from his mother that proved he was in the military. He has no idea how Gonzalez did it.

"I mean, 22 years, and she has helped so many people," Schaller said.

Gonzalez speaks as if she remembers every case.

"There's so many," she said. "Almost everything we ever did is a great memory for me."

It was her job, but it was her passion, too.

"The hallmark of what we did was we went to where the veterans are," Gonzalez said. "Most people are isolated because of their age, transportation, or illness."

She is modest about all this. She refused to pose for a picture.

"You don't want to put through the idea that we stood alone and we were the greatest of the greatest," she said. "I took my job very seriously, and I loved every moment of it. What better job could you have than to take care of veterans, really?"

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