LEWISTON — Lenny Richards’ RV looks like a rock star ride with its cockpit-like driver’s station, custom-painted exterior and satellite dish on the roof. But rather than parties, this motor home is made for deeper stuff. The interior walls close. Chairs swivel to face each other.
Here, veterans can have an impromptu talk with a Department of Veterans Affairs’ counselor. Or they might pick up information.
“Wherever the vets are at or wherever the vets might be, that’s where we are,” Richards, who works for the Veterans Administration, said. “We are all about outreach and education.”
His hope is to reach somebody who might be enduring the invisible wounds of war: depression or anxiety, addiction or abuse.
He parks, sets up a table and hopes a veteran reads the giant Vet Center letters across the vehicle and wants to know more.
“The most popular question I get is, ‘What does it get for mileage?'” Richards said. He has operated the 38-foot converted Winnebago for two years. “I still don’t know its mileage.”
But the question might lead to more questions. And questions can lead to help.
Across the country, vet centers operate as part of the mental health arm of the VA. The hospitals and clinics deal with veterans’ medical problems. The centers and the RVs, 50 nationwide, specialize in readjustment issues. The vehicles act as a kind of sample for the aid that can be given at the centers.
Through the vehicle, someone might learn the address of one of the vet centers to pass on to a friend. Others might receive immediate help. Richards typically travels with a counselor.
“They can talk to someone right away,” he said.
In 2010, Richards spent virtually all summer on the road. From May until September, he managed to spend a total of three weeks at home with his wife and children.
In the winter, the schedule slows. When it’s not in use, it is housed behind the Maine National Guard Armory on the Alfred Plourde Parkway.
But there continues to be events to attend, such as an upcoming snowmobile gathering where he’ll pull up the coach and turn up the heat.
Don MacNaught of Falmouth warmed himself in the coach Friday as it sat parked outside the Lewiston Vet Center on Westminster Street and marveled at its use.
A Vietnam veteran, MacNaught believes the counseling offered on the motor coach can save lives. His work to deal with his wartime experiences through one-on-one counseling changed his life, he said.
“Without that, I wouldn’t have a family now,” MacNaught said. “I don’t know if I’d be alive.”
dhartill@sunjournal.com
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- Tim Tully, right, from Standish and a Vietnam veteran, exits the Lewiston Vet Center’s mobile unit with driver and outreach support member Lenny Richards from Sabattus in Lewiston recently. The mobile unit travels around Maine and parts of New Hampshire, bringing information and counseling to veterans at places like motorcycle rallies and fairs.
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- Vietnam veterans Don MacNaught of Falmouth, left, and Tim Tully of Standish, center, listen to Roy Driver, counselor with the Lewiston Vet Center, inside the RV the center uses to inform veterans of services available to them.
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