VA goes missing in action, store workers fix Vietnam vet’s broken wheelchair
Michael Sulsona, 62, served as a US Marine in Vietnam, where he lost both legs in an explosion while on patrol. Some forty years later, it was not the VA that fixed his worn-out wheelchair, but employees at a local store.
For the last two years, decorated Vietnam veteran Michael Sulsona
has been petitioning the Veterans Administration for a new
wheelchair - to no avail. Then, during a visit to a hardware
store on Staten Island, New York, the rickety wheelchair finally
broke down.
“I knew I was stuck and couldn’t go anywhere,” he told
the New York Post on Wednesday.
An employee nicknamed ‘Sal’ quickly came to Sulsona’s rescue,
doing what the VA had failed to do for two years.
“He shouted out some orders and assembled a team of guys who
came over and immediately started helping me,” Sulsona said.
“They were like a well-oiled machine, like a SWAT team.”
Working off the clock, three employees, “David, Marcus and
Souleyman,” went to work on the wheelchair, getting it back in
working condition without recompense.
"They said, 'You're not leaving till it's like new
again,'" Sulsona recalled, as quoted by AP.
The next day, Sulsona wrote a letter to his local newspaper, the
Staten Island Advance, to express his appreciation to the
employees.
"No one needed permission, there were no forms to fill out,
no incident reports, they just saw a guy in trouble and
helped," he said of the three workers.
After his letter attracted attention, the VA delivered him a
brand-new wheelchair.
The VA released a statement on Wednesday offering apologies for
the delay.
"Too many veterans wait too long to receive their health care
and benefits and this has never been acceptable," it read.
“They got me the new wheelchair, and that’s good,”
Sulsona said. “It’s just upsetting that as soon as you get a
new wheelchair, you better order a new one right away because
it’s going to take two years to get the next one.”