Marine Lance Corporal James Crosby could not stand, but he placed his hand over the Purple Heart pinned to his chest yesterday as he led the Pledge of Allegiance at an emotional Veterans Day ceremony at the State House.
The 24-year-old Marine from Winthrop - confined to a wheelchair after a severe spinal cord injury from a rocket that hit his base in Iraq in 2004 - opened a somber ceremony attended by Governor Deval Patrick, Senator John F. Kerry, and about 100 veterans and relatives of the fallen who gathered in Memorial Hall.
Crosby has taken on a new mission since he returned from combat: to fight for increased federal benefits for those wounded in Iraq and Afghanistan and to make sure those servicemen and women coming home know that Massachusetts offers among the most generous state benefits in the country to veterans.
"We owe a lot to our veterans," said Crosby, who four months ago was named outreach coordinator for the Massachusetts Department of Veterans Services.
"And my job is to be sure they know what is available to them. And in Massachusetts in particular, there are a lot of services," he said in an interview after the ceremony.
Honoring the veterans in attendance and those in the towns and cities across the Commonwealth, Patrick said, "You have placed yourself in harm's way for us and for freedom itself."
"We honor those here whose memory of war is distant and those here whose memory is fresh," he added.
Among those recognized at the ceremony were five members of the New England Chapter of the World War II Tuskegee Airmen, the first group of black fighter pilots in the US Army Air Corps. Patrick presented them with Congressional Gold Medals for their service and described them as heroic pioneers.
There also was a tribute to women veterans led by Air Force Captain Jenny D'Olympia, who served in Afghanistan and read from a journal she kept during her tour of duty.
There were parades and ceremonies across the state yesterday, and a collective moment of silence on the 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month that marks the moment at which "the guns fell silent" during World War I, which was known as "the war to end all wars."
"How naive to think man was so wise and good," Thomas Kelley, secretary of the state Department of Veterans Services, commented to the group as he stressed the current need to continue to fulfill the national promise to care for veterans as they return from war.
Over the past year, there has been widespread criticism by veterans' advocates about the failure of the federal government to provide adequate services, particularly in the area of mental health, to returning veterans. Over the summer, a bipartisan presidential commission highlighted problems in the coordination of care between the Department of Defense and the Department of Veterans Affairs, and reforms have been called for.
Kelley said that with the federal government's struggle to deliver services, it was important to note that several states, including Massachusetts, have been in the forefront of providing a wide array of services and benefits for veterans. In Massachusetts, a benefit known as Chapter 115 offers up to $1,600 a month for the first three months after a veteran returns, to help them get their feet back on the ground. There also is a new program to provide Massachusetts National Guard veterans with free state and community college tuition. There also are low-interest loans offered to veterans. All of these state benefits are coordinated by a network of "veterans agents" in every town and city, a safety net for veterans that has existed since the aftermath of World War II and that is unique in the country, Kelley said.
The challenge, Kelley added, has been making veterans aware of the state benefits. To date, fewer than 7,000 of the state's 475,000 veterans actually take advantage of the state's financial assistance, according to the state's data.
Paul Sullivan, a Persian Gulf War veteran and former VA official who is executive director of an advocacy group known as Veterans for Common Sense, agreed that Massachusetts and a handful of other states, including Minnesota, Wisconsin, and Texas, had the best record in providing state benefits to veterans.
But he said, "This is good and bad. It's good that these states are filling holes left by the federal government. The VA has failed to deliver for veterans, and [states] are doing what they can. But it is bad if it somehow allows the federal government to get off the hook on providing the services it owes to veterans. . . . This administration has been grossly negligent in providing enough funding and manpower for the VA, and veterans who are coming home are feeling that."
Kerry, who as a Vietnam War veteran has fought to increase veterans benefits, said in an interview after the ceremony that while Massachusetts has always been in the forefront of helping veterans, "we cannot outsource the obligation of the federal government to provide the services that are owed to veterans when they come home from war.
"Sadly, we have been here before," Kerry said, referring to the Vietnam War, when VA care for veterans was marked by failure.
"We can't ever let that happen again," added Kerry, who last night hosted a cruise aboard the "Spirit of Boston" in Boston Harbor for veterans.
