Newsgroups: alt.politics.marrou
Subject: What the Democratic Party really thinks of the homeless
From: lippard@skyblu.ccit.arizona.edu (James J. Lippard)
Date: 10 Sep 1992 23:07 MST  
Distribution: world,local
Organization: University of Arizona
News-Software: VAX/VMS VNEWS 1.41    

The following article appeared in _The Arizona Daily Star_ on Thursday,
July 16, 1992, p. 5A.  Apparently major papers such as _The Washington
Post_ and _The New York Times_ failed to report this.  (Does anybody
know what, if anything, the Republicans did with these guys?)

Limelight faded fast for 'honor guard'
By Robert Zausner
Knight-Ridder Newspapers
  NEW YORK--For Warren Quinlan, a homeless Vietnam veteran from Boston,
it was the proudest moment of his life:  Grasping an American flag and
the attention of the nation, he led the Democratic National Convention
in reciting the Pledge of Allegiance.
   But the limelight faded fast for Quinlan and nine other veterans
from Boston, all in uniform, who made up a homeless "honor guard" that
launched the convention.
   Once the patriotic opening ceremony was concluded, the vets got a
box lunch and were shown the door, sent out without so much as a hotel
room, relegated to a Harlem homeless shelter where they were kept awake
by gunshots and a bombing.
   "That was it.  We were out of there.  We were history.  We were
definitely on our own," Quinlan, 45, said in a telephone interview
yesterday.
   "We thought, given the magnitude of the money being spent on the
convention ... that we would be honored by at least being put up in a
hotel.  I felt bad for the men under me," he said.
   Ken Smith, director of the 150-bed New England Shelter for Homeless
Veterans in Boston, noted that the Democrats used the honor guard of
vets to underscore their concern for the country's hundreds of thousands
of homeless but didn't really care if 10 men had "something to eat and a
place to stay."
   "Yeah," he said.  "That's a little ironic."
   He said the men spent the evening in the shelter because the Democratic
National Committee, which has $38 million to spend on its bash in Madison
Square Garden, had told him it only had enough money in its budget to pay
$500, roughly a quarter of the group's costs to attend the convention.
   The other $1,700 came from inhabitants of the shelter, who raised it by
selling sodas during a recent festival of tall ships in Boston.
   "Thank God for Pepsi," said Smith.
   So while the conventioneers were whooping it up at restaurants and
hotel bars, often at the expense of corporate lobbyists or New York
sponsors, the veterans found themselves in sadly familiar territory--not
only homeless but forgotten.
   "One minute you're standing on the stage of the national convention
and the next you're in Harlem," said Robert Donohue, 48.  "It sounds
terrible, but it's something we've learned to take in stride.  We've all
seen better days."
   Thomas Connelly, 44, said he didn't mind much.  He said that being on 
the stage was worth it, that "for a long time I hadn't felt so proud and
honored."
   "As far as I'm concerned," he said, "it's just typical of government.
It's been like that since I got out of the Marine Corps in 1969."
   Many of the men--15 in all including Smith and other staff who made
the trip by train--said that despite the disappointment they would have
made the trip anyway.
   "Our mission was to raise the level of awareness on homelessness and
veterans," said Smith.  "These men would have walked to New York, would
have slept in Central Park."
   The same honor guard hopes to make an appearance in Houston when the
Republicans hold their convention there next month.  Smith said he hopes
the GOP will pay for their travel and accomodations.
   The homeless men did allow themselves one extravagance in New York.
They had money wired down from the shelter's food fund and used it for
dinner at Mama Leone's.
   That money will have to be made up by the men.  "We didn't expect to
be pampered," said Quinlan, "but it sure would have been nice."

Jim Lippard              Lippard@CCIT.ARIZONA.EDU
Dept. of Philosophy      Lippard@ARIZVMS.BITNET
University of Arizona
Tucson, AZ 85721