On this Veteran’s Day, columnist Bob Kerr shares his experiences as a volunteer driver for veterans. Kerr says it’s the conversations he cherishes, even more than the satisfaction of delivering a vet safely to his or her destination. 

When we pulled into Ernest Meikle’s driveway in Cumberland, he pointed out he had built much of his house himself.

“The roof, the chimney and cement work.” 

The house was part of the conversation that day.  So was Meikle’s firm belief that the world is going to hell and that television never got much better than “The Honeymooners.” 

We talked some about his war too, the one he fought in Europe, then the Pacific.  He was a coxswain on Navy landing barges.  He was often in the thick of it during World War II.

Meikle is 94. His wife Elsie is 92.  And as I drove away from their house that day I thought about how lucky I am that I can do this, that I can drive people like Ernest Meikle to and from their medical appointments and be part of a rich, sometimes salty highway conversation that can take some fascinating turns.  

We gather in the early morning in a small room in the basement of the VA Medical Center in Providence.

Veterans have to call by 7 a.m. to arrange for a ride to their appointments through the Volunteer Transportation Network..  We head out as the requests come in, to Woonsocket and Pascoag and Coventry and North Smithfield – all over Rhode Island and parts of southeastern Massachusetts.  We drive Ford SUVs with patriotic paint jobs, and we pick up veterans.  Later on, we take them home.

Some don’t want to talk, and that’s fine. But some do.

“A lot of guys don’t have anyone talk to, they’re alone,” says Bud Prairie, a retired design engineer from Pawtucket who has been a volunteer driver for five years.  “We’re a sounding board.” 

And, oh the things we sometimes hear. One vet living in humble digs in Olneyville shared the fact that he had been thrown out by his wife for sleeping with her sister. It was hard to know what to say. A younger vet who fought in Afghanistan told us his liver had been “all shot up.” I assumed it was a war wound. But a vet sitting in the back seat asked a cold, hard question:  ”Was it combat or your own stupidity?” And without missing a beat, the young vet said it was his own stupidity, the result of an accident while cleaning a gun.

We drive, we listen,  we talk and we learn. We learn what it’s like for many vets who often carry a heavy load of medical needs and a bunch of memories that won’t let go. We see the often isolated places where they live and watch too much television.  

Joe Casey lives on Cape Cod and drives veterans from Hyannis. He’s been doing it for 16 years. It’s quiet until one guy starts talking, says Casey, it’ll often start with what branch were you in. Casey was a marine.  

About two dozen drivers help out at the Providence VA, mostly vets like Casey and me. There are similar programs in other VA hospitals.

“It fills that niche for veterans who don’t qualify for other kinds of transportation,” says Tony Gore, mobility manager at the VA Medical Center.

While the program bears the stamp of the organization Disabled American Veterans, anyone can donate a car and many of the vehicles are rolling memorials to deceased veterans.

For me, in retirement, it really is a privilege to do this, to make a connection with veterans and make a small difference. I hope I’m a good listener. I hope I pay a veteran’s thoughts and observations the proper respect.

And with any luck, I won’t screw up Ernest Meikle’s good opinion of the volunteer drivers.

“You’re all very nice,” says Meikle.  “Never cranky.”

When I started as a volunteer driver at the VA earlier this year, I thought I knew my way around Rhode Island. I didn’t. I have driven down roads I’ve never seen before, pulled into places far removed from the familiar. I’ve seen some pretty lonely spots I never would have seen had I not been picking up a veteran headed for the hospital.  

But the best part of it all has been the conversation. We’ve talked, the vets and I, in that hard to miss SUV. We’ve talked about all kinds of things – ailments, politics, family problems, even our assorted wars.  There is a wonderful freedom to it, a shared sense that the people in the car will understand in ways others can’t.  

Bob Kerr is a retired columnist who worked for many years at the Providence Journal. You can find more of his musings about life and Rhode Island at our website ripr.org.