JOHNSON: One woman's crusade gives hope to vet spouses

By Bill Johnson, Rocky Mountain News (Contact)

Saturday, June 28, 2008

I am hardly a fan of government proclamations, resolutions and the like, mostly because they cost not a penny to issue, nor provide a single cent to assist the cause they highlight.

The little ceremony Friday afternoon at the Capitol, I suppose, was different. No, I know it was.

It lasted maybe an hour, only a relative handful of people taking up chairs in the West Lobby, concluding with the governor proclaiming today Veterans' Widows and Widowers Day in Colorado.

A small gesture, to be sure. Not a single surviving spouse of a military veteran will receive anything, not a phone call or a letter.

Maybe I have been to one too many military funerals, spoken to one too many grieving widows. Recognition by the state of their and their spouse's sacrifice, if nothing else, will do.

It took a kind, patient 82-year-old woman to better explain to me why that is important, at least at this moment.

Her name is Edmee J. Hills. She is national chair of the Veterans' Widows and Widowers International Network based in Aurora, whose only job is to beg, plead, cajole and sometimes threaten politicians and bureaucrats to provide for survivors of veterans.

She is a piece of work, a description she will not quibble with because it is true. Persistent is a better word. Always in the back of her mind, she said during a quiet period after the ceremony, is the widow trying to make due on less than a thousand a month, whom the government owes at least twice as much, but wants to pay even less.

"It moves me, it motivates me," Edmee Hills explained. "It is why we formed our organization, to fight to get recognition for all veterans' survivors in the country."

The ceremony Friday, she said, is only a first step.

June 28 was chosen, she explained, because it is the earliest historical date where mention is made of military wives.

On that day in 1778, Mary Ludwig Hays was on the battlefield with her husband, an artilleryman, during the Battle of Monmouth when he fell over from heat stroke. Mary Hays, who was carrying water to the troops, took over his cannon and fired it for the duration of the battle.

It was six years ago that Edmee Hills began a campaign to get the Bush White House to create a national widows and widowers day. The effort went nowhere. It wasn't for lack of trying.

She ticked off the names of every Colorado senator and congressman she begged to take the idea to Washington. Each of them did so.

"I never got so much as a letter back from the White House," Edmee Hills recalled. "All of them tried to get the White House to comply. They sent letters, made phone calls, sent more letters. They never got an answer."

So she would start small.

She first ran into Bill Ritter at a veterans' function when he was running for governor. She asked him then if he would do something if he got elected. She showed up at the Capitol a few weeks after he was inaugurated.

"I told her we were ready to go to work," said House Speaker Andrew Romanoff on Friday, who carried the issue through the legislature.

For 30 years, Edmee Hills was an Army wife, raising children and moving to so many bases over those years she has lost count.

"Every place we went to, it was the wives and the families who had to provide for the post needs, who did the counseling, the consoling. We earned and deserve this recognition."

It wasn't until her husband, who had joined the Army in 1945, passed away in 1981 that she realized the burdens she had carried through the years and the struggle she would encounter obtaining the benefits that were rightfully hers.

"There are those who go to the VA honestly for help, who are almost immediately shown the door," Edmee Hills said, "told they do not qualify for help."

In most cases, she learned, it isn't about being qualified, but having the proper documentation, letters and papers many lose or forget about over the years. She now helps them locate the paperwork they need and holds their hands through the process.

Working with Louisiana Sen. Mary Landrieu, she convinced Veterans Affairs to open an office in Washington, D.C., later this year that will address solely the needs of military widows and widowers.

"If you speak out for others, others, too, will speak out, and still more will speak out," she said. "Colorado is the first state in the nation to give us a day. Today, we have simply planted a seed, one I believe will germinate and grow to all 50 states, that one day will grow into a national day of recognition. I am not fighting for anything other than what is due to us."

Bill Ritter closed the ceremony by reading the proclamation he has signed. He is dutifully greeting those on hand, a bit rushed to make a meeting of Western governors, when Edmee Hills buttonholes him.

"You know what you must do now at the meeting," she said, grabbing the governor's hand.

"I will do so," he promised her.

"You heard him!" Edmee Hills exclaims.

johnsonw@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-2763

• June 28, 2008

  10:09 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  anarchist writes:

  Is it an election year, or does Ritter (D) actually care?

• June 28, 2008

  7:15 p.m.

  Suggest removal

  arby writes:

  Anarchist
  Quit being such a sceptic. I believe we have an honest and honorable man as the Governor of CO. If he said he would bring up the Veterans widows day then I think he did. Did he make any progress? Maybe, maybe not.

• July 1, 2008

  9:44 a.m.

  Suggest removal

  jestbill writes:

  "...honest and honorable..."??

  Why! How dare you!! That's all irrelevant. We don't care about that.

  He's not a right wing idealogue. He's not a Republican! He hasn't bought any computer systems that don't work.