Leo Parent Still Fighting for Veterans
SHELBURNE FALLS Ask Leo Parent Jr. when he plans to retire, and hell tell you he retired two years ago.
But sitting in the Shelburne town offices, as he has done for years, on an early Tuesday morning, he doesnt seem to have stopped doing for veterans and widows what hes been doing for the last 30 years.
Since 1984, Parent, a Vietnam War-era Army veteran, has been helping military veterans in 24 towns by counseling them, steering them through the maze of paperwork required to sign up for Veterans Affairs benefits and sometimes even driving a very distressed veteran to the Veterans Administration Medical Center in Leeds.
When asked how many veterans hes helped, Parent shrugs. I was trying to think about that, he said. Just say hundreds. It may be thousands.
They include veterans from every war since World War I. One of those World War I veterans, Homer Gamelin of Turners Falls, called Parent in 1984, to see if he was interested in taking over as the regions veterans agent, when the agent at that time was retiring.
There was never a day that I didnt want to go to work, he says. I love helping people.
Besides serving as veterans agent for the Central Franklin County District Veterans Services, Parent was an Erving selectman for 12 years, and a former Erving police officer. Hes also served on the boards of the Franklin Regional Transit Authority, the Franklin County Community Action Corp., and is still on the board of the VA Hospital in Northampton.
Parent says hes been asked to stay on as a veterans agent until the transition to a central veterans services center in Greenfield is complete.
Now 67, he expects to wind up his role as a veterans services officer by June. However, he intends to keep his Veterans Affairs certification because maybe someone down the line will want to call me, he said. And maybe I can help them.
Parent said one advantage of serving on various town and community boards was that it gave him connections to the many social service agencies and people who could help the veterans and veterans widows that Parent was helping.
Im fortunate that over the years Ive met a lot of wonderful people that have helped me help the veterans, from Social Security, the unemployment office, from Veterans Affairs. Today, all my networking people are retiring, like me. Parent said new people are coming on and its now more difficult to get face to face help in a world where the paperwork is done online and where agencies such as Social Security have closed their Franklin County office.
You lose that human touch, he said. Things have changed.
Parent says he wants to stay on the veterans hospital board of directors because in a job like this, you form a relationship with your clients and widows. Mostly, the women outlive the men. What the vet tells his wife is, If something happens to me, you go see Leo.
When theyre dying, I go visit them and they say, If something happens to me, please see my wife.
Im dealing with these wonderful ladies, and one of the hardest parts of retirement is losing the relationships with these people Ive gained over the years, said Parent.
You hope that the new people coming in will have that same kind of compassion.
During his 30 years, Parent has also seen a lot of post-traumatic stress disorder and has taken his share of middle-of-the-night calls from the distraught family members of a veteran, or from police officers who would rather have Parent handle an intoxicated veteran than to arrest him for disturbing the peace.
Parent has sometimes met with a distraught veteran and his wife on an emergency basis, arranged for the veteran to see a VA doctor, and even driven him there, if need be. Parent said his wife of 37 years, Susan, has been very understanding of the middle-of-the-night and emergency weekend calls.
She never complains about the house phone calls, he said. Parent said he could never have done what he has done without her support.
Leo Parents father, a World War II veteran, died several years ago, but Parent keeps the Jr. in his name to honor his father.
Besides his direct work with veterans, Parent is proud of his role in bringing dramatic tributes to veterans from area towns. The best known is perhaps the profusion of American flags on the slope in front of the Carnegie Library a few years ago one flag for every American veteran killed or wounded in Iraq.
For the past 15 years, Parent and his wife have been vacationing in Yauco, Puerto Rico. While there, Parent files VA forms for veterans living in that U.S. territory. Theres no VA guys over there, he said. I love doing that.
Tags: Veterans News
