(Archive) Remarks: Silver City Veterans Rally 6.6.2025

Good evening! I can’t tell you how good it is to be home.

For those of us who are Veterans, home is the whole point a lot of time, right? What I mean is we know home, in America, is the best place to be. And we are willing to make ourselves uncomfortable – to put ourselves at risk, get hurt, pay the ultimate sacrifice to defend our way of life and promote our values around the world. 

Because there is no place like home.

But when we get home after service, when we leave the military, things can be tough. When home is Silver City, and the VA hospital is 235 miles away, things are really tough.

If you have read my column, you might have noticed I like to research budgets and legislation. Unfortunately for you this evening, I’ll be talking about that tonight as it affects the VA. But first, I will do what Sharon – can we give a hand for Sharon? – asked and talk a little about my experience as a Veteran.

My experience as a Veteran is shaped largely by my upbringing and my upbringing in Silver City. My family moved here in 1974 when my father, John Hamilton, took a job at Chino after he retired from the Marine Corps. Perhaps some of you here worked with Daddy at the mine.

My earliest memory about Veterans comes from sitting around the Drifter coffee shop as a little girl watching my mother, Dianne Hamilton, do her early morning radio show, “Anything Goes.” There was often a group of Vets who sat around and bought me cinnamon toast. I used to sit on Nick Chintis’ lap and we would say funny things to each other.

It wasn’t until I was in high school that I understood that Nick, like many of our Grant County WWII vets, was a Bataan Death March survivor. State Representative Tommy Foy, Senior, was another. What they experienced as Japanese prisoners of war is still commemorated each year at White Sands Missile Range.

I graduated from Silver High and attended Notre Dame on a Navy ROTC scholarship. I was commissioned into the Navy at age 20 and served in the Philippines, Washington DC, Norfolk and then back to DC at the Pentagon. I became ill and was medically retired at 28. My story isn’t very interesting.

My parents came to visit me when I was promoted to LTJG – my last automatic promotion, perhaps they figured they had better show up because it might be the last. We visited the Vietnam Memorial. We walked from one end to the other. That was it. Dad said nothing. Mama urged him, don’t you want to look anyone up? He said, I know my friends are there, none of my men are.

He went on to explain that as the Marine artillery battalion commander at Khe Sanh he had made a decision to disobey the order to send his Marines out to do body counts after a shelling. Because that was when the NVA would pick off Marines with snipers.

Daddy did a 13 month deployment to Vietnam, in the worst place at the worst time and did not lose a Marine. What he and two of his fellow battalion commanders did was cited in an ethics textbook used at the Naval Academy.

Daddy, unsurprisingly, was exposed to Agent Orange. He had a massive stroke in 2015, and after a valiant struggle, passed away in 2017. I was his caretaker. I miss him very much. Over that period after his stroke, we worked to get him to 100% disability with the VA. It came through a few months after his death.

My mother began to fail a couple years later and then the pandemic struck. When a bad fall would have sent her to a rehab hospital, we were able to set up a skilled nursing facility of sorts at my house with 24-hour care. That extra $1200 a month from the widow’s pension that comes from a 100% disabled Veteran was a godsend. This is my PSA to the Veterans: if you were exposed to a toxic substance, fight for 100% disability. Do it for your family.

My brother Drew served as an Army officer for 21 years. Also field artillery, he was exposed to depleted uranium. He has struggled with widespread melanoma for 20 years and now has prostate cancer. He does not use the VA and has not been rated.

My sister Lynn also served as an Army officer for 21 years. She worked at Tooele Army Depot which is a massive chemical weapons base. She has significant nerve damage in her back, shoulders and arms, and psoriatic arthritis. She is rated at 100% disability. Her daughter can attend college at no cost in the state of Virginia.

I have followed what is happening at the VA. Here is my bottom line up front: no one knows.

·      The toxic exposure fund – which is for treatment for us exposed to Agent Orange, the burn pits, asbestos in shipyards, mustard gas at Tooele Army depot, volcanic ash in the PI like me -  might be zeroed out for FY 26. That’s what’s in the continuing resolution passed by Congress in March did – took it to zero. And they only funded it for the rest of this year at 50%. But the secretary of the VA has it fully funded in his budget. Which is it?

·      And the personnel cuts. Everyone charged to work on them has been forced to sign a non-disclosure agreement. But again, the secretary in his budget lists an increase above FY 24 levels for next year. Which is it?

·      I follow the budget process every year. This. Is. Not. Normal. This. Is. Not. Okay.

As an observer of government, this is what I see: extreme inexperience, an emphasis on loyalty to a man and not a nation, and a paralyzing fear in Congress.

As a Veteran, and a patriot, not a partisan, I suggest that we deserve better. We deserve answers. All Americans do. We should be able to get information about the programs that affect us from websites, not social media. Our Congress should act and question, not rubber stamp.

We Veterans have put much on the line to defend ideals. We must use those ideals to protect our benefits and our nation.