Bars offer vets more than drinks

Bars offer vets more than drinks
The Los Angeles Times
DALE CITY, Va. — The minute one of her regulars comes into VFW Post 1503, Dori Keys starts to pour. Rich gets a Captain Morgan and Diet Coke. Sam drinks Old Crow on the rocks. Bruce likes Miller Lite.

The men she serves have one thing in common: They are American combat veterans. After seven years of listening from behind the bar, she knows a lot more about them than what they drink.

For instance, Bruce Yeager, 62, came in one day complaining about a sore on his foot that wouldn't heal. A former Army medic in Vietnam, he knew what was wrong. But it took Keys to persuade him to see a doctor. She even drove him. His gangrenous leg was amputated a few weeks later, the result of diabetes linked to his exposure to Agent Orange.

“I listened to Dori because she is a real good person,” Yeager said. That's about all he can put into words before his eyes mist up.

When it comes to dispensing health care, war veterans are a hard group to reach — and a growing group, thanks to ongoing wars in Afghanistan and Iraq. Combat vets came up in a military system that rewards toughness and discourages complaints, particularly concerning psychological problems such as post-traumatic stress disorder.

A researcher in Ohio thinks bartenders like Keys might be part of a solution.

“In social work, you try to meet the clients where they are. If that happens to be a bar, then that's where the first line of help needs to be,” said Keith Anderson, an assistant professor of social work at Ohio State University. He is lead author of “The Healing Tonic,” a report on a pilot study that explored the family-like relationships between bartenders and vets at VFW canteens around Ohio.

The results suggest the women behind the bar — most of them happen to be women — could be an untapped resource for steering vets in crisis toward professional help.
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Bars offer vets more than drinks