FRANKLIN, North Carolina — Vietnam War veteran Rick Norton, 74, is closer to danger now than he has been since he manned a 175 mm M107 self-propelled gun in Polei Kleng more than 50 years ago.
Like many Vietnam veterans, Norton’s tour exposed him to Agent Orange, leading to both heart disease and prostate cancer, for which he has regular Department of Veterans Affairs checkups.
That has not changed during the coronavirus outbreak.
“If I get the virus, it’s probably going to take me out of here,” said the Army gunner who retired to the same quiet mountains he knew before a tour in Vietnam from 1967 to 1968.
Norton now relies on his local VA clinic and a veteran’s hospital over the mountains, in Asheville.
“We’ve all got some underlying illnesses. Most of us do. So, COVID is certainly not a good thing to be picking up at this time in our lives,” he said. “I’m more conscious of what’s going on around me. I do wear my mask if I’m out.”
Norton described his VA experiences in recent months to the Washington Examiner, including passing through a careful regiment of precautions at both VA facilities that have made him feel protected from the virus.
Before a July urologist appointment at the VA hospital in Asheville, Norton visited his local clinic, having his blood drawn by a nurse outdoors.
“They’re trying to keep as many people out of the facility as possible,” he said.
Check-in procedures, including temperature and symptom-related questions, both took place outdoors. Once inside the only designated entrance, he was met by a nurse who conducted the symptom check again before he was allowed to proceed.
“It’s a good working procedure,” Norton said.
And the VA’s numbers bear that out.
Some 26,000 veterans have been infected with the coronavirus, and over 19,000 have fully recovered of an estimated 9.5 million in VA care, Veterans Affairs Secretary Robert Wilkie said on a recent press call.
Of the 1,700 veterans who have died of COVID-19, 924 died at VA hospitals and 850 in other parts of the country.
The COVID-19-positive numbers are even smaller in the 134 VA-run nursing homes nationwide, where just 10 patients have tested positive for COVID-19 out of 7,500 veterans and residents.
“We are not immune to what is happening in the rest of the country,” Wilkie said. “The reason that number is so low is because we took drastic measures long before the rest of the country woke up to this.”
The VA quickly cut off visitors and family access to protect the large number of World War II and Korean War veterans at their nursing homes.
It also sent teams of doctors, nurses, and gerontologists to 46 states to assist at state and community veterans nursing homes.
“We are preparing if this thing boomerangs back on us in the fall and winter. We are storing up supplies,” Wilkie said, noting the VA has never had less than a two-week reserve of supplies.
“We have come through this probably in better shape than any other healthcare system in the country,” he said.
Norton heaped praise on the quality of the care he gets through the VA, even during the coronavirus pandemic.
“I can’t say enough about the medical care that I get from the VA in Asheville. It’s fantastic. It’s great,” he said.
But getting an appointment or a resolution on a disability claim yield the same long waits and administrative delays as before, he said.
“The time I have had to wait is extremely long in most cases,” he said. “Waiting six to seven months sometimes to get a ruling on a disability claim or some issue that you’ve had.”
Norton said he doesn’t know any veterans who have contracted the virus in his local Vietnam Veterans of America chapter, which has some 220 members and is among the largest in the state.
He even feels comfortable enough to return to the recently reopened VVA Chapter #994 office off Murphy Highway and down the road from the Nantahala Ranger’s office.
“I go out there about every day. Yeah. And I’m on duty Mondays,” he said. “We talk about the news. We talk about NASCAR. We talk about sports.”
He added: “Mostly just BS.”
