Program Allows World War II Vets to Get High School Diplomas  

Published in the Pawtucket Times on March 18, 2002

Thousands of young students across the nation left their high school studies to join the armed forces during World War II.

Their high school education would instead be gleaned from life experience learned on the bloody battlefields rather than from school textbooks.

Former Pawtucket resident George Redman, a World War II veteran, along with others, will receive his long-awaited high school diploma in May, courtesy of a state initiative dubbed Operation Recognition.

The City of Pawtucket has joined other Rhode Island communities in conferring diplomas to aging war veterans in their 70s and 80s who were honorably discharged between Sept. 16, 1940 and Dec. 31, 1946. Diplomas can also be awarded posthumously. Additionally, those who have earned GEDs are also eligible to receive their diplomas.

For many like then 17-year-old Redman, high school took a back seat as the clouds of war swirled over Europe. Times were tough for the youngster’s family because the Great Depression was just ending. It became necessary for Redman to take a job to help his disabled war veteran father supplement the family’s coffers. It became a very easy decision for Redman, who was playing baseball Pawtucket Red Sox, to drop out of Pawtucket High School’s Class of 1939.

Initially, Redman had wanted to serve on an aerial bomber. Coming from a military family fueled this high school dropout’s desire to serve his country even more, says the longtime resident of North Attleboro. He claims that his uncle was the first Pawtucket resident to die in the Great War of 1917.

“Wait until they call you,” his mother urged. That is what the young Redman did, taking a night shift job at New England Pretzel Company, packing hundreds of boxes of salty pretzels each shift. Before he entered military service, the young man would ultimately become a drill press operator at H P& B American Machine Company.

When his draft notice arrived in 1942, 21-year-old Redman gave up his manufacturing job, traveling to Fort Devens in Avery, Mass., for training. Later he would travel to Oklahoma and Texas for field training before being sent overseas to fight in the bloody Italian Campaign. Two bullets from a German machine gun in 1944 ended Redman’s military career. Upon his discharge, he returned to the states with a Purple Heart, the Combat Infantryman’s Bade and the Bronze Star Medal.

Redman would later re-enroll at Pawtucket Hight School, but a bout with the flu forced him to withdraw from his studies. Not having hs high school diploma never negatively impacted his career selling office supplies and equipment. “You learned your trade on the road,” he quips.

More than 50 years after World War II, not graduating high school, however did come back to haunt him. The retired war vet called a local college to inquire taking paralegal courses. Not having is diploma effectively blocked his admission to take courses.

“Right there, I knew that I needed that high school diploma to further my education,” Redman says. “Any college course I wanted to take would require my diploma.”

Like Redman, Pawtucket resident Henry Fugere, 78, a World War II veteran who is a retired electrician from Rhode Island Hospital never graduated from high school. Helping to support his 15 sibling and a nation mobilizing for war ended his dream of  obtaining a high school diploma.

“Getting my high school diploma is now a matter of principle,” Fugere says, explaining why he filed out his application to participate. “I will feel a little bit prouder of myself for getting that diploma. I didn’t earn my diploma by sitting at a desk buy by the hard way, through serving my country and the many jobs I held.”

A chance conversation by Assistant General Manager Laureen Grebien, of Gregg’s Restaurant on North Main Street, Providence with Redman ultimately got Pawtucket City Councilor Donald Grebien involved in bringing  Operation Recognition to Pawtucket.

Grebien remembers his wife, Laureen, waking him up at 11:30 p.m. that night to tell him of her conversation with Redman and about the war vet’s desire to get his high school diploma.

After contacting local veterans groups, the Rhode Island Veterans Affairs Office, and checking the Internet for programs implemented by other states, Grebien said, “things just snowballed.”

With the blessing of the Pawtucket City Council President John Barry, Grebien created a Veterans Ad Hoc Committee that would later hammer out Pawtucket’s Operation Recognition program. Members include Grebien along with School Committee Chair Raymond Spooner. Santa Almeida, a veteran and president of AFSCME Local 1012, Ken McGill from the mayor’s office and representatives of the Pawtucket School Department.

Thirty-plus meetings held over the last year have created Pawtucket’s Operation Recognition Program, promoted it and have planned the upcoming graduation ceremony on May 31 at Veterans Amphitheater on Roosevelt Avenue, Grebien says.

“Promoting the program heavily in newspapers, on cable TV and to veterans groups is key to our success,” Grebien notes, because lack of records block the efforts to develop accurate listing of all those eligible to receive a high school diploma. High school yearbooks, with a listing of students from 1941 to 1946, were used to identify potential candidates.

“Approximately 10 veterans responded,” Grebien adds, noting that he hopes to identify other eligible former veterans, too.

Ad Hoc Veterans Committee member Ray Spooner, who chairs the Pawtucket School Committee stands strongly behind the program.

“Their education was sacrificed for our freedom,” he says. “After all these years we are giving seniors their just due for all their years of service to their country. For all the people that we can find who are eligible to participate, they deserve getting their diplomas.”

Applications to participate in Operation Recognition for War II Veterans are due on March 31.

The Best Of…Old Tales of Ireland Add Comedic Dimension to Concert

Published March 11, 2002, Pawtucket Times

            Some people just know what they want to do in their professional careers.  But like many others, world-renowned Irish Storyteller Jimmy Kennedy fell into his chosen trade.

            Kennedy became a comedian by accident.  The 77-year-old, Dublin-born Kennedy chuckled when he was asked to remember an event that took place at the beginning of his career — an event that played a key role in changing his life.  The budding singer was asked to replace a comedian who failed to show up at a variety show.  So like a trooper, Kennedy went onstage and told a few traditional Irish stories.

           “I had a few stories that I had told around the table at the local pub,” Kennedy said. “I simply told those stories, he said, explaining in his heavy Irish brogue, this accident had pushed him into a life-long career of comedy.

           Kennedy known as “Ireland’s Master of Mirth, comes to Pawtucket next Saturday on St. Patrick’s weekend to perform with the internationally renowned Three Irish Tenors. The trio is comprised of Tom Cregan, from the Royal Opera Convent Garden; Claran Nagle from Riverdance: The Show; and Anthony Norton, from La Scala Milan.  Joining Kennedy and the Three Irish Tenors is Soprano Jacqueline Whelan and her Irish harp, as well as a  host of dancers and musicians.

           The Irish performers come to the Tolman High School auditorium in Pawtucket on a three week nationwide tour of the United States.  The Pawtucket stop is their only appearance in Southern New England. This is Kennedy’s fourth tour with the Three Irish Tenors.

           During the two-and-a-half hour show, Kennedy will dress as a Seanchai, and an old storyteller who wears and old suit and cap, holding his walking stick.  He will sit next to a turf fire and spin this tales.” It’s a family oriented show that provides great entertainment for both seniors and their grandchildren,” said Kennedy, who explains that shows like this usually play in Irish hotels during the summer throughout Ireland.

          Neither Kennedy’s father, who worked in the whisky business, or his homemaker mother, who cared for her 11 children, ever showed any inclination of going into show business.  But he young Kennedy did. At age 11, he was a “boy soprano” in the church, belting out our songs to his congregation.  Three years later, he would win a talent competition at Dublin’s Queen Theatre, fanning his love for appearing before audiences.

           Add these early experiences with daytime jobs on radio and in television, and Kennedy was ready to  hit the road to perform.

          “I have been on the road touring for most of my life,” said Kennedy, who noted that show business had enabled him to travel to many parts of the world that he could not afford to see.  His performance tours began in 1943, later taking him throughout Ireland, England, Scotland, Wales, the Far East, the United States and Canada and to Bermuda, the Caribbean and Alaska on cruise ships.

          During World War II, a patriotic Kennedy entertained American troops in Germany with his Irish songs and comedy routines.  One such tour led him to meeting a dancer who would become his future wife. Of course, his two children and grandchildren are musically inclined.

          With more than 60 years invested in show business, Kennedy said he has played with some of the names in the Irish entertainment industry, specifically the Irish Rovers, Dame Vera Lynn, who was known as the “armed forces sweetheart,” Paddy Noonan, Noel henry, Jimmy O’Dea and Stanley Hollway, the famous British actor who played in “My Fair Lady.”

          Kennedy also played at the Gaiety Theater in Dublin in the early 1950s, which was one of the highlights of his career..  At this widely respected theater, he went on stage with the late comedic actor Jimmy “Odea.

           “To play the Gaiety in Dublin was considered to be a feather in your cap,” he quipped.

           During his career, Kennedy has recorded his comedy routines on a number of albums including “Innisfree,” “Green Isle, Sounds of Ireland,” and “A Little Bit of Irish.”

          What’s the secret to his success of being a “Seanchai?”

           Kennedy said his routines concentrate on good, clean Irish humor. “It is stories of Irish life and situations,” he noted.

           Kennedy Does not plan to retire soon, saying, “the great thing about show business is that there is no retirement as long as people want to see you.” He added, “I often say to people that when I walk up in the morning, ‘this may be my last day.’ Someday I will be right.”

             Now that’s humor.

              The event is being sponsored by the Northern Rhode Island Council on the Arts and Convergence Pawtucket. 

                Herb Weiss is a Pawtucket-based freelance writer who covers aging, health care and medical issues. He can be reached at hweissri@aol.com.

Staffing Crisis Hits Nation’s Nursing Facilities

Published in the Pawtucket Times on February 25, 2002

A yet-to-be released federal report paints a very bleak picture about the quality of care provided in the nation’s nursing facilities.

According to an article published last week by The New York Times, a draft federal report finds that 90 percent of the nation’s nursing facilities do not have enough nursing staff to properly care for their residents.

Simply, put, the lack of staffing reduces the quality of care provided in nursing facilities, increasing the incidence of bedsores, falls, malnutrition, weight loss, urinary tract infections and blood-borne infections, the report notes.

According to the draft report, which was ordered by Congress, is expected to be officially released by the U.S. Department of Health and Human Services in April, reaching appropriate staffing in nursing facilities would cost the federal government big bucks.

With a $ 7.6 billion annual price tag, about an 8 percent increase over current expenditures – the report – entitled “Appropriateness of Minimum Nurse Staffing Ratios in Nursing Homes” – recommends cheaper ways to fix the staffing crunch in the nation’s facilities.

Rather than regulate minimum ratios of nursing staff to residents, the report calls for better management techniques and training of certified nursing aides CNAs) to increase staff productivity and to decrease CNA turnover. Additionally, market demand sparked by an informed public that has access to publicly reported nursing staff data may even increase nurse staffing levels in facilities, the report notes.

The New York Times article does not get to the root of the nation’s staffing problems in nursing facilities, charges Al Santos, executive director of the Rhode Island Health Care Association, the state’s largest trade group that represents nursing facility providers.

“While the article only focused on the inadequacies of staffing levels across the country, it failed to report on its cause – a lack of adequate government reimbursement for nursing facility care,” Santos said.

Santos stated the federal report, which is detailed in the New York Times, is correct in its assessment that the shortage is “likely to become worse.

It should come as no surprise to policymakers that in order to increase wages and to make frontline nursing jobs competitive. Medicaid can no longer pay roughly $ 4 per hour, per patient for shelter, meals, labor costs, special care, certain therapies and other items,” Santos adds. “Costs far outweigh government reimbursements for patient care, and chronic under-funding of Medicaid directly impacts staffing.”

There is no doubt in my mind that the lack of adequate staff in facilities create poor quality of care,” says Roberta Hawkins, executive director of the Alliance for Better Long-Term Care, who also serves as the state’s ombudsman on nursing facility issues. Hawkins said she fears that the continuing staff shortage in Rhode Island facilities will chip away the past 25 years of improved resident care that has resulted from state and federal nursing facility reforms.

Although inadequate pay and benefits are obstacles to retaining staff, Hawkins predicts that it will become even more difficult to recruit CNAs when more horror stories about poor care appear in local newspapers or on state or federal agency websites.

“As a society, all of us are responsible for the care not being provided to nursing facility residents. If we don’t provide that money to pay for the best of care, we are partially responsible for that care not being provided,” Hawkins said.

Hawkins sees as permanent fix to this ongoing staffing shortage found in Rhode Island facilities – tie the reimbursement rate to the level of resident care provided. For instance, facilities with heavy-care residents would receive a higher Medicaid reimbursement rate, which takes into account the increased staffing needs of those residents.

But adequate Medicaid funding is not the only solution to the continuing staff shortage dilemma facilities face, Hawkins warned.

“We need to create upward mobility in nursing jobs, improve training specialty care provided to Alzheimer’s residents, bedridden residents and to those requiring rehabilitation,” she said.

The new federal study doesn’t surprise Lt. Gov. Charles J. Fogarty, who chairs the state’s Long-Term Care Coordinating Council (LTCCC) and to those involved in providing or regulating nursing facility care in the Ocean State.

Just last year, a statewide LTCCC study found Rhode Island’s nursing facilities reported a shortage of certified nursing assistants, the staff who provide 90 percent of the direct care to residents.

“The report gives us useful information to look at the issue of staffing and quality in Rhode Island nursing facilities,” Fogarty said. “It also should serve as a clear signal to Congress that it must do a better job of planning and funding long-term care.”

A state commission chaired by Human Services Director Jane Haywood, is currently studying how the existing Medicaid reimbursement system can be improved.

Even with a mounting state budget deficit, it is now time for the governor, state lawmakers and state officials to put the energy and resources into tackling this ongoing staff shortage issue.

With major input from the nursing facility industry and from Hawkins and her resident advocates, Haywood’s final blueprint for changes in the state’s Medicaid program must be taken seriously. With a state election looming in November, candidates running for governor, the Rhode Island General Assembly and Congress must do their homework, study the staffing crisis in the state’s nursing facilities, and develop their positions to confront this pressing policy issue.

More than 10,000 nursing facility residents and their families pray that the report to be issued by the Department of Human Services will not end up in some back office on a dusty shelf.