In this Monday, May 2,
2016 photo, Tom Alligood, a veteran and certified nursing assistant,
speaks during an interview at the Dorn Veterans Administration Hospital
in Columbia, S.C., Alligood knows all about the bad press suggesting the
nation isn’t properly caring for its veterans. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)
COLUMBIA, S.C.— Nursing assistant Tom Alligood wears
camouflage scrubs during his emergency room shifts at the Dorn VA
hospital because he says it helps other veteran patients realize they’ve
“walked over the same dirt,” the 62-year-old former Army tanker says.
And he doesn’t just mean the desert sands of Iraq.
Alligood means homelessness, job loss and the mental anguish of being
a long-time military veteran trying to adjust to the trials of a
dog-eat-dog, backstabbing civilian world he says nearly ate him alive.
“I need to be around veterans like me. That’s where I get my
strength, my ‘positiveness’ from,” says the burly former first sergeant
who now sports a long, gray braid on his back.
Alligood says he has found a new mission – working in the sprawling
Columbia VA hospital and helping as many of his one-time brothers and
sisters in arms as he can.
And the VA is looking for more people like Alligood.
I need to be around veterans like me. That’s where I get my strength, my ‘positiveness’ from.
In an attempt to respond to the crisis of lengthy patient wait-times
and a malfunctioning bureaucracy, VA Secretary Robert McDonald told
Congress the agency hired about 14,000 health care workers last year,
including 1,300 doctors and 3,600 nurses.
At Dorn, nursing administrator Ruth Mustard said the hospital hired
an average of 85 nurses as well as 25 licensed practical nurses and 25
nursing assistants each year for the past two years.
Alligood’s background as a military veteran is a plus, she says, and they can always use more like him.
“Veterans know what it takes to serve and what sacrifices they’ve
endured and what some of their challenges have been that have affected
their health,” the nurse supervisor says.
Alligood said he can relate to his veteran-patients because the route
he took from being a VA patient to VA caregiver has been a challenging
one.
After leaving the Army, he took a job managing a concrete block
plant. The job was eliminated when the plant was sold. Falling deep in
debt, Alligood said he took to sleeping in abandoned buildings after
losing his car and his home. Life in homeless shelters didn’t sit right,
either.
“I wasn’t in the best of shape, mentally and physically,” he said,
his rumbling voice catching. “That was the lowest I’ve ever been.”
Alligood said counselors told him about a VA program that put
homeless veterans into counseling and back to work. He grabbed the
chance to put in 40 hours a week transporting other veterans around the
hallways of the sprawling Dorn VA Medical Center in wheelchairs and
gurneys.
“It was for $5.15 an hour, minimum wage. But trust me, that $5.15 meant more to me at that time than anything,” he recalls.
As he traversed the hospital’s maze of corridors, Alligood said he made a point of greeting as many people as he could.
Alligood’s banter with other veterans caught Mustard’s ear. She told
him the VA would pay for his schooling if he wanted to learn to become a
certified nursing assistant and come back to help other veterans.
He went back to school and the Florida native returned to the Dorn VA
Medical Center, where he’s logged three years in an eldercare unit and
six years in the emergency department.
“He has a fabulous rapport,” Mustard said.
Ruth
Mustard, a nursing supervisor at the Dorn Veterans Administration
Hospital in Columbia, S.C, on May 2, 2016. (AP Photo/Bruce Smith)
Emergency room nurse Karen Teal says the former first sergeant has a
personal touch that put stressed-out patients “instantly at ease.”
“He’s our jewel,” Teal says, beaming at her co-worker.
Alligood said his days in Iraq and Saudi Arabia help him understand
veterans who might be dealing with post-traumatic stress disorder. He
recounted one veteran he found experiencing a “flashback” in the ER.
“I was able to tell him, ‘I got your back, I got your back,'”
Alligood said, telling how he’d gotten down on the floor with the ailing
veteran, assuring him he’d reached a safe place.
“I don’t feel that this is a job for me. I feel that this is a calling, because I get to help so many people,” Alligood said.
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