Veterans Day reflections in Amherst on ‘price of liberty’

• Email
• Print
• Comments (0)

AMHERST — On a sunny day with a brisk breeze blowing, about 40 people turned out to the center of Amherst to honor military veterans.

Terry Fenstad of Amherst, a retired U.S. Air Force colonel, was master of ceremonies during the 45-minute ceremony on the Town Common in front of Town Hall.

The main speaker was Victor A. Nuñez Ortiz, a student at the University of Massachusetts Amherst and former Marine who served in Iraq.

Nuñez, vice president and director of Veterans Advocacy Services, which helps military veterans navigate the process of claiming benefits from the federal Veterans Administration, came to the U.S. at age 7 when his family fled the civil war in his native El Salvador.

“I knew no English and my family was poor,” he recalled. After joining the Marines, Nuñez served five years, including deployment as a combat engineer in Iraq.

Upon his return, he became involved in Veteran Education Project, an Amherst nonprofit that encourages military veterans to share their personal stories with students in local schools.

“It helped me heal,” he said, noting that veterans “come home to a nation that doesn’t understand what they’ve been through.”

Fewer Americans join the military today and serve in combat than ever before, Nuñez said. Fenstad, who is commander of American Legion Post 148 in Amherst, said 11.2 percent of eligible men joined the service during World War II, 4.3 percent joined during the Vietnam War and fewer than half a percent have served in the global war on terror since 2001.

Nuñez said he helped found Veterans Advocacy Services because he became “deeply concerned about the way veterans were treated when they came home.” Those who served found it difficult to access services through the VA, he said.

Some veterans of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars suffer brain injuries, which he termed “the signature injury” of modern combat, at higher rates than previously, he said. Veterans are committing suicide at a rate of 18 a day, he said.

Organizers of the event have said there is a crisis among veterans, with many suffering from substance abuse, homelessness, unemployment, and the effects of post traumatic stress disorder. Veterans Advocacy Services “shields veterans from the bureaucracy” that can prove frustrating and helps them access needed services, Nuñez said.

“We deserve nothing less,” he said. “And we follow up, which many government agencies don’t do.”

For information, go to the group’s website, www.veteransadvocacyservices.org.

“Veterans Day is really one of our most important holidays,” Stephanie O’Keeffe, chairwoman of the Amherst Select Board, told the gathering.

“We are in our 11th year of war in Afghanistan,” said Town Manager John Musante, “We hope (all those serving there) will be home soon.”

“The price of liberty is always great,” said the Rev. Michael Twohig of the Newman Catholic Center at UMass.

The ceremony concluded when Fenstad and Coleen Cauley of Amherst, a U.S. Marine Corps veterans and now a graduate student at UMass and commander of VFW Post 754 on Main Street, raised the American flag from half mast to full staff as Sue Dunbar, who teaches music to Amherst elementary students, played the national anthem on trumpet.

Two of the eldest veterans in attendance were Tom Coogan of Florence, 91, a Marine veteran of World War II and Korea, and Bob Joy of Amherst, 81, who served in the U.S. Air Force during the Korean War.

Etta Walsh can be reached at ewalsh.gazette@gmail.com