Veterans helping veterans

In 1950 a then-young, unknown Marlon Brando was preparing for his first film, "The Men," by hanging out with members of the Paralyzed Veterans of America.

A method actor, Brando confined himself to a wheelchair as he went about his daily tasks to prepare for what would be the critically acclaimed role of a paralyzed war vet trying to adjust to his crippling injuries. He spent weeks with World War II veterans who, unlike Brando, would never walk again.

One night in a Southern California bar, a religious woman walked up to the group and told them that if they simply had faith in God a miracle would occur and they would walk again.

The unsuspecting woman laid her hand on Brando, who began to shake violently. Brando then stood up, said "I'm cured!" and walked out of the bar as the woman gawked in utter amazement and the disabled veterans bit their lips to avoid laughing.

"The message Brando was making was that for us, there will be no miracle, and that it is absurd to think that something that simple will make it possible for us to walk again," Las Vegas psychologist and paralyzed veteran Lupo Quitoriano said.

"Our job is to inform people about the reality of spinal cord injuries and how we deal with them realistically."

Quitoriano, 49, a Navy veteran of the Vietnam War, is the first president of the newly formed Las Vegas-based Nevada Paralyzed Veterans of America.

The Brando story was related by fellow member James Smith, 71, a former actor who says Brando told him the tale years later.

The local group is the 35th chapter for the organization that now has a presence in 30 states and Puerto Rico and represents 18,500 paralyzed veterans. The Nevada chapter has 68 members.

The congressionally chartered organization, formed after World War II, is open to all veterans with spinal cord injuries or diseases, whether they suffered their injuries during combat or afterward.

And like many of the characters Brando portrayed, the group's members are vocal and tough on issues -- especially when it comes to dealing with bureaucratic red tape.

Quitoriano, who in the 1980s worked for the Long Beach, Calif., VA hospital as a staff psychologist, is a strong critic of the Department of Veterans Affairs. He quit the agency because of its slow progress, especially in treating spinal cord injuries. After two years in Las Vegas he sees a lot of room for improvement with the local VA.

"We need accessible services here (at the Addeliar D. Guy III VA Ambulatory Care Center) that were planned for but have not yet been implemented," Quitoriano said.

"We will be a strong voice for getting those services so veterans with spinal cord injuries won't have to make so many 300-mile trips to other hospitals for things that can and should be treated here."

Las Vegas VA Director Ramon Reevey understands Quitoriano's criticisms better than most VA administrators. He too is a spinal cord injured veteran and a longtime member of the organization. He has joined Quitoriano's new group.

"This has been an important issue to me because of my kinship with veterans with spinal cord injuries," said Reevey, whose clinic treats 71 veterans with spinal cord injuries and 141 with spinal cord dysfunctions -- the vast majority of them sufferers of multiple sclerosis.

Reevey agrees that the implementation of spinal cord services has been going more slowly than he would have liked, but he says things are improving.

"We have implemented a spinal cord injury plan, recruited a doctor and sent out letters to all of our spinal cord patients to determine how many of them want to change their primary care physician" to the clinic's doctor, Reevey said.

When the spinal cord clinic is fully operational, Reevey said he believes it will significantly reduce the number of trips local veterans take to Long Beach and San Diego VA hospitals for minor spinal cord treatments.

Reevey said he does not believe there is a conflict with him being a member of an advocacy group that may be critical of his clinic.

"Many VA directors are members of several veterans organizations, so I don't see a problem there," Reevey said. "In some aspects, it is to our benefit because we get direct input on issues and can act on some of them more immediately. I also am an advocate of veterans rights. And I think advocacy is a positive thing."

Reevey, Quitoriano and Smith all were injured after their military careers.

Quitoriano was injured in an auto accident 28 days after returning from his second tour of duty in Vietnam in 1971. Smith, a former radio show host who served in the Army during World War II, suffered his injury in a horse riding accident in 1955.

Following their injuries, Quitoriano and Smith became active in the Paralyzed Veterans Association in California.

Smith later founded the San Diego chapter. Today he is founder and president of the Nevada chapter of the Wheelchair Veterans of America, which is the temporary headquarters for the Nevada Paralyzed Veterans Association.

"The difference between the two organizations is that the PVA deals specifically with spinal cord injuries while wheelchair veterans can include a number of different injuries like amputees," Smith said, noting that his primary function will be fund-raising for the newer nonprofit corporation.

Hugh Richens, a Las Vegas resident for 40 years, suffered his spinal cord injury on the battlefields of France in January 1945.

"There was no PVA when I was wounded," the 75-year-old Army veteran said, noting that he was one of the first to join the organization, formed in 1946.

"Over the years I have seen the PVA lobby Congress on key issues, especially for spinal cord injuries," Richens said. "What we have today for benefits would not exist had it not been for the work done by the PVA."

The issues tackled by the national association -- and the subjects the Nevada group will focus on -- include the Americans with Disabilities Act, wheelchair accessibility, dissemination of health care information and federal cutbacks to the VA's budget.

In March, the national group called the latest proposed VA budget cutbacks "intolerable."

Homer Townsend Jr., the national president, told a joint hearing of the Senate and House Committees on Veterans' Affairs that the proposed VA budget "will result in the demise of the VA health care system through intentional budget strangulation."

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