Hospice provider and shelter honors homeless veteran for service

BY TAYLER SHAW TSHAW@COLORADOCOMMUNITYMEDIA.COM

Although he woke up in pain, George Daniel Read said he spent the morning at Rocky Mountain Refuge for End of Life Care trying to make himself presentable, shaving his face and sporting a new haircut. It was a big day. A ceremony to honor Read, who has cancer and is receiving hospice care, was planned for that afternoon to recognize his time serving in Vietnam as a Marine. e ceremony was a combination of e orts by TRU Community Care, a health care organization providing hospice care to Read, and the Rocky Mountain Refuge, where he is currently staying after becoming unhoused about two years ago.

“Hospice care in our country is designed to be in your home with your family assisting,” said Brother James Patrick Hall, the executive director of Rocky Mountain Refuge and a friar with the Brotherhood of St. Gregory. “And if you don’t have either one, there’s not much for you to go to.”

Hall said Rocky Mountain Refuge is a specialized shelter that o ers around-the-clock custodial, familystyle care for unhoused people who are on hospice.

“ e hospice organizations do the hospice care. We do what a family would do,” he said. “People come to us. We take care of them until they pass.” volunteers who o er services such as companionship and pinning ceremonies for veteran patients receiving end-of-life care. emony held in the sunroom of the Denver Rescue Mission’s building, e Crossing, where the Rocky Mountain Refuge is also housed.

Larry Sturgeon, a veteran volunteer for TRU Community Care who also served in Vietnam, presented to Read several items including a framed certi cate in his honor, a Vietnam bead set, a star from an American ag and a ag pin.

“Today, we honor Daniel for his service to our country,” Sturgeon said. “On behalf of a grateful nation, sta and volunteers at TRU Community Care, thank you for your military service to the United States of America and for advancing the hope of freedom and liberty for all.”

At the end of the ceremony, Read said, “I’m proud to be an American and I’m proud to be a Marine.

“And I’m proud to be able to serve not only you people but other people like you.”

Turning memories into stories

TRU Community Care is one of the hospices involved in the National Hospice and Palliative Care Organization’s “We Honor Veterans” program that was created in collaboration with the Department of Veterans A airs.

“ e VA (Veterans A airs) does not provide hospice. e VA does palliative (care). And so if veterans on service with them need hospice care, they need to … utilize community partners,” said Becki Parr, a volunteer coordinator with TRU Community Care who oversees the organization’s We Honor Veterans community outreach.

Parr said Veterans A airs formed as they are reconciling with things, the whole of their story, they need a space to be able to share that story.”

One of the e orts of the We Honor Veterans program is getting veteran volunteers like Sturgeon so that when there is a veteran patient, there can be someone to listen to their experience, Parr said.

“Sometimes there is somebody who won’t share something with their daughter or son but would share it with someone else who also served,” she said. “It’s been powerful.”

During his time in service, Sturgeon said he worked at the Camp Zama Hospital.

“We were the hospital to which the majority of the injured veterans were sent,” he said. “I worked in the laboratory there.”

As a veteran volunteer, Sturgeon makes it a point to ask veterans what their experience was like, as he said veterans can sometimes struggle with talking to themselves.

“But we’re really good at talking to each other,” he said.

When veterans share their experiences, their memories become stories, Sturgeon said.

“ at’s part of what I’m trying to do is … to turn those memories into stories. And stories have power,” he said.

Part of the purpose of the ceremonies is to ensure that all veterans know “that we still remember them,” Sturgeon said.

“We’re honoring the veterans, not the war, not the politicians who sent them to the war,” he said. “We just want them to know that we remember. And perhaps, as important, they’re genuine American heroes.”

In the military, if a person is given an order, they are expected to follow it without question, Parr explained.

“Sometimes, people are asked to do things that might make them have to compromise morally, and that’s called a moral injury,” Parr said. “ ose are things, too, that we want to create space for people to share.”

In addition to serving patients, TRU Community Care aims to educate the community on what happened with Vietnam veterans and how they were — or were not — welcomed home after their service, she said.

“Some of them were really never welcomed home. ey took o their uniforms and tried to disguise themselves as non-military as soon as they could.

“And … that’s not every Vietnam veteran’s story, but it’s enough,” Parr said, explaining part of the ceremony is saying ‘welcome home’ to the veteran. “ ere have been many times when I’ve gotten to witness Larry (Sturgeon) welcoming someone home and there’s been tears in the person’s eyes.”

“ e biggest thing, I think, that I’m taking away from this work is to listen to the individual story and not make any kind of assumptions,” Parr continued. “Be willing to listen in a non-judgmental way to the story of another person and honor the person.”

‘I am approaching the end of my life’ Around the age of 16, Read, who is now in his mid-60s, said he got into some “trouble” and faced a choice: go to prison or enlist in the military. He chose the latter and said he en-