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Show DISABLED VETERANS Rehabilitated Disabled Veterans Competent, Efficient Employees Recently motion pictures were being taken of blind veterans in the Idento-Tag plant of the Disabled American Veterans. Here miniature automobile license plates for key rings are made by disabled veterans and distributed to 30 million motorists each year, i The funds realized are used in the DAV service and rehabilitation program. pro-gram. "Cut", cried the director and the camera stopped grinding. The director di-rector stood for a long minute without saying anything, looking speechless. "What's wrong?" asked the cam- i eraman. I The director ignored this question ques-tion as he asked to caucus with the production manager. "This is a ticklish matter," hemmed hem-med the director, "but those boys work with such speed and ease, the public won't see they're blind. Could you ask them to slow up?" When the production manager explained ex-plained the situation to the group, one of them said, "Oh, I know what they want they want us to act as if we're blind." When a blinded veteran of World War II has to "act" blind for a motion picture camera it speaks well of the rehabilitation of World War II disabled. The blinded veteran is proficient because his rehabilitation followed a definite, tried and tested pattern. He wasn't always so proficient. And he may not always be as efficient ef-ficient if the rehabilitation program and the post-rehabilitation benefits break down. Three Phases of Work In the nine years since the first disabled veterans of World War II were returned to the United States, it has been found that rehabilitation can be as simple as curing the 'chicken pox. Both the rehabilitation of the disabled veteran and the caring of the sick child should follow a smooth and successful course ; ' under proper professional care and direction; while each can i become serious and harmful through neglect or misunderstanding. misunder-standing. Thus the disabled v-teran again becomes a useful and self-sustaining member of society just as the child can be restored to normal health. Woodrow Wilson in a letter of November No-vember 29, 1918,. wrote that this nation na-tion had no more solemn obligation than that of restoring the disabled to , civil life and opportunity ... by developing and adopting the remaining remain-ing capabilities of each man. From this the definition of reha-' bilitation was worked out by a navy .officer as "the process of restoring the handicapped individual in terms Jof his total situation, to the fullest physical, mental, social, vocational land economic functioning of which he is capable." This means in even simpler language lan-guage that rehabilitation is trying to get the disabled veteran to stop thinking about what he could have idone with which is gone, and aiding him in helpingf himself in making the best use of what is left. The Disabled American Veterans has worked for more than 29 years ,with thousands of disabled veterans and so carefully has the matter been thought out and so successfully have the ideas been applied that it has been found that rehabilitation can :be broken down into three distinct phases. First there is physical and mental readjustment. Then training and employment. Third, the individ-!ual individ-!ual and social restoration. an arm may still be a competent salesman, draftsman or lawyer. These are a few of the jobs open to the disabled veteran. A vice president of General Motors Mo-tors said in a memorandum to department de-partment heads that once a disabled veteran is properly placed on a job he is no longer considered disabled. Ordinarily you wouldn't think of a badly disabled man as a construction construc-tion worker. Orlando A. Milano of Erie, Pa., was seriously wounded by the explosion ex-plosion of a land mine in Germany during World War II. Outside of the two men who lost both arms and both legs, he was about as badly disabled as any living veteran. He was totally blind. His left arm was amputated at the elbow. His right hand was badly mutilated. And he suffered a slight loss of hearing. An Outstanding Case But there was the magic of rehabilitation! reha-bilitation! Milano was assigned to a convalescent hospital for blinded veterans for social and pre-voca-tional training. All the time he was planning what he was going to do when he got his discharge. His father had died while he was in the service and there was no one but him to carry on the Milano Construction Con-struction Company of Erie. On his discharge, through the war assets administration, local manufacturers and his own aggressiveness ag-gressiveness he acquired equipment equip-ment which included heavy duty trucks and shovels and other things necessary to his plan. Today he is successful in a highly high-ly competitive field and the hard work connected with running this business does not bother him. And there is the case of Louis A. Miller of Louisville, Kentucky. He was wounded when he and the driver driv-er of his armed jeep broke through a stubborn roadblock in Germany. The driver was killed and Miller was left for dead. He was wounded in the back, neck and head by ma-chinegun ma-chinegun bullets. He was unconscious uncon-scious fifteen days. Although an operation was performed per-formed on his brain there were no hopes for h;s recovery. Surgeons labelled him as a "museum of pathology." Even later when he was able to sit up doctors predicted he would spend the rest of his life in a wheelchair. He was paralyzed on his left side and he lost his power pow-er of speech. But Miller was deter-, mined to fight back to normalcy. He began to try to walk and began to try to sing with the radio. Soon he was walking and then he was talking. On his discharge he took an extension course in the University of Louisville where he studied advertising, ad-vertising, typing and business administration. ad-ministration. Then he went with the Kentucky department of agriculture. He is now advertising manager for the Kentucky Electric Co-op News. Compensation Necessary Thus the man who was left as dead on the battlefield is very much Disabled Vets Competent These factors all blend in a harmony of body, mind and spirit. v To bring about this harmony a care ful program is followed, each phase of the veteran's rehabilitation being handled by competent and well trained persons. There is the veterans administration administra-tion physician and the nurse. Then the physical therapist, the occupa-. occupa-. 'tional therapist, and the artificial appliance maker. The disabled man ;may need the psychiatrist or the psychologist. He comes under the influence of the vocational counselor, the educator, and the placement worker. Then he is associated with the employer or the industralist land finally by those of his home cir- icle and his friends. Rehabilitation involves the combined efforts and thoughts of all these persons. But the best of all aids is the disabled vet- eran himself. For as someone said "it is he whose interest and satisfaction must be met, within his remaining physical, mental and social capacities. ' The disabled veteran, prepared for a job in line with his physical ; condition, aptitude and ability, can do his work well. A man with a leg amputated can do anything at a! I desk that an able-bodied man of equal skill can do. A man without J alive, fighting the battles of Kentucky Ken-tucky farmers for better living conditions, con-ditions, water, sewage and land conservation. con-servation. He leads a useful and active ac-tive life. These men are only two examples ex-amples out of thousands of what can be accomplished when rehabilitation reha-bilitation follows a definite pattern. pat-tern. Actually rehabilitation in the experience of the DAV is proper hospitalization or treatment treat-ment of the wounded or disabled veteran. It is also fair compensation com-pensation and pension for his wartime handicaps. Compensation, as an aid to rehabilitation, reha-bilitation, is one thing stressed by the DAV. It is considered an important impor-tant part of the adjustment of the wartime handicapped. Disabled veterans vet-erans are paid by a grateful government govern-ment to help them live as normal a life as possible and become useful citizens in their communities. Compensation Com-pensation is paid each month to offset, off-set, at least in part, the veteran's reduced earning power caused by his wartime, service-incurred disabilities. dis-abilities. Rehabilitation, too, is social readjustment re-adjustment through comradeship with fellow disabled veterans at DAV chapter meetings. Furthermore, Further-more, it is legislative protection of rights to which the disabled veteran is justly entitled, and which give him a necessary sense of security. |