Another Group of Kerry’s Victimized Veterans Need Help Urgently

Most of you know that John Kerry’s misrepresentations seriously harmed American veterans of Vietnam for over a generation. In 2004 we set the record straight.

Another large group of veterans have suffered even more: veterans of the South Vietnamese Army, Marines and special forces. Our abandonment has left them at the untender mercies of Hanoi, which refuses to care for their serious wounds, some literally dragging their war-crippled bodies through the dirt for decades.

My friend R.J. DelVecchio (Del), a Marine veteran of Vietnam, has waged a singular campaign to provide secret financial assistance, to cobble together wheelchairs from scrap and such, and has made several ordealing journies to South Vietnam to deliver help. The 501 (c) (3) tax deductible foundation Del helps lead is The Vietnam Healing Foundation.

See for yourself, at The Vietnam Healing Foundation’s website, those in need. PLEASE contribute whatever you can, and please pass the word through your blogs and to your email friends.

Del now begs for your help. He just sent me a long email, excerpts below:

I was in Saigon in Spring of '06 and December/January of this past year again, to find and qualify needy vets. This last trip was tougher, because the Hanoi authorities don't like any kind of help being given to their old enemies, even 32 years after the war is over….

Anyhow, we are now helping 80+ very poor/sick vets, with some difficulty as we have to change local helpers to keep them out of trouble but still get the money we send over right into the hands of those who need it. Due to our very limited funds, we had to (very sadly) start turning away all new requests for aid that were coming in.

And the really bad news is that we cannot qualify for grants and other forms of official support here, because of the way we work, that is, without going through the government in Viet Nam. (Which would never cooperate in what we're doing.) None of us is an expert fundraiser, so we have been barely keeping things going. We're pretty worried about getting through the quarterly sending of funds over there for 2008.

The point of all this is to ask that you consider making any sort of contribution to the charity that you might care to, and no gift is too small. Remember, $10 will feed an old man for most of a week over there, or get him a supply of medicine for a while. We are a 501c (3) charity, so all contributions are deductible. Our overhead runs at maybe 3%, to pay expenses for our agents in Vietnam, all the rest of the work here is by volunteers like myself. Contributions to VHF get you a much bigger "bang for the buck" than most charities, in terms of value delivered to those who desperately need help….

If you have any questions at all, please let me know and I'll do my best to explain whatever it is that you ask about.

Thanks for reading, best wishes for a great Thanksgiving.

Del

PS- we're trying to get a PayPal setup on the website, but in the
meantime checks to Vietnam Healing Foundation can be mailed to

Vietnam Healing Foundation
P.O Box 641
Willow Springs, NC 27592

Del’s email is techconsultserv@juno.com for any questions

For more background, I’ve previously written about the Vietnam Healing Foundation and Del’s trips:

Forgotten South Vietnamese Allies

Vietnam Healing Foundation

Travelogue Through Vietnam’s “War Museum”