Mon, Oct 13 2008
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Published May 15, 2008 05:45 pm - The scenes in the video playing on the large screen in the dining hall sometimes would change from old to young. Mike Pound: Video captures veterans’ wartime experiences By Mike Pound
Globe columnist mpound@joplinglobe.com The scenes in the video playing on the large screen in the dining hall sometimes would change from old to young. From wisdom gained through age to youthful cockiness. From suspenders, work shirts, oversized glasses and thinning hair to crisp, starched uniforms worn by dashing young men. From the weary faces of men who have seen and done things they wish they hadn’t to the excited, eager faces of men who didn’t yet know that they soon would be forced to see and do those things. The dining hall where the video was being shown was in the Missouri Veterans Home in Mount Vernon, and the folks watching it were a combination visitors and residents of the home. I was one of the visitors. I stopped by the home Wednesday evening to attend a small reception marking the 25th anniversary of the Veterans Home. The Veterans Home opened May 12, 1983. The home originally was housed in a renovated wing of what then was known as the State Chest Hospital and now is known as the Missouri Rehabilitation Center. A new home, the one I visited Wednesday, was opened in 2004. The Veterans Home is a neat place. It’s clean, of course, but more than that, the place has a warmness to it, a feeling of respect, a feeling of home. I remembered a year or two ago mentioning to Don Long, administrator of the Veterans Home, that I didn’t hear the overhead music, announcements or pages that you normally associate with hospitals or nursing homes. Don told me that was because the home didn’t use an overhead intercom system. He said most people wouldn’t want music or announcements blaring overhead in their home, so why should the residents of the Veterans Home have to put up with the noise? “This is their home,” Don told me. Wednesday evening, Don and I chatted about the guys — and gals — who live at the home. Don said that out of the 200 residents, 172 are over the age of 72 and 102 are over the age of 84. Don told me that he was talking to a resident the other day, and the guy asked Don how old he thought he was. Don told the guy he thought he was in his early 80s. “He told me he was 92. I was amazed,” he said. Don said he is constantly amazed at the youth and vigor that most of the residents display. Most of them remain active and mentally alert. They remain alive. And, for the most part, they handle their advancing age with grace and with humor. That, I think, is what makes the Veterans Home such a neat place, and it’s probably why I enjoy dropping by the place as often as I do. The video I was watching was put together last year by archivists with the state of Missouri. The documentary features snippets of 31 residents of the Veterans Home talking about their wartime experiences. As the men on the screen talk, the folks who put the video together cut to old photos of them. The men who are young and good-looking in their wartime uniforms often have their arms around beautiful, smiling, young women. Sometimes the men in the video laugh as they tell their stories. Sometimes they don’t. Sometimes they put their heads down. Sometimes they look away from the camera. Sometimes they stop speaking for a second. Sometimes they cry. They talk about the boredom associated with war, and they talk about the terror. For some of the guys, it’s the first time in years that they have recounted their war experiences. For some, it’s the first time ever. 
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