Flag raising symbolizes a new beginning for New Orleans VA

Vietnam War veteran Felix Lewis of American Legion Post 500 in New Orleans remembers the storm and floods that devastated his city in 2005. “I was on the last bus out of the convention center,” he says. “No food or water for a week.”

Monday, on the 240th birthday of the United States, he and hundreds of other veterans and their families gathered to see the U.S. flag raised at one of the city’s most visible signs of recovery from Hurricane Katrina and the floods that followed. A $1 billion, 31-acre VA medical center campus, replacing the high-rise facility that was destroyed by the storm 11 years ago, is nearly complete and is scheduled to start treating patients in November. Full services will become available in phases through 2017.

“It’s been a long time coming,” said Lewis, who served in the U.S. Marine Corps. “We are grateful. It’s beautiful.”

After Lewis and his family were displaced, and the New Orleans VA hospital was rendered unfit for service, the veteran was forced to travel to Poplar Bluff, Mo., for care. Thousands of other southeastern Louisiana veterans have had to travel to Texas, Alabama, Mississippi and elsewhere for acute and specialized care while the system provided clinical services for veterans – of which there are approximately 70,000 in the region – at leased clinics in and around the city.

“Much like the veterans we serve, the flag is a symbol of our nation’s strength and unity,” Southeast Louisiana Veterans Health Care System Director Fernando Rivera said at the flag-raising ceremony at the entryway to the new hospital. “It’s a source of pride and inspiration for millions and serves as a prominent icon in our national history. The American flag flying over this campus shows that we stand for honor, peace, democracy, freedom, the rule of law, human rights and equal opportunities for all. In other words, it stands for all the reasons our veterans served our nation.”

World War II veteran Joe Loyacano helped raise the U.S. and POW/MIA flags at the ceremony. Metairie American Legion Post 175 donated the flags, and the post band performed at the ceremony. The Louisiana National Guard presented the colors, and Maj. Gen. Glenn Curtis, Louisiana National Guard commanding general, was the keynote speaker.

“For me, raising the flag here at this VA hospital is significant because 11 years ago, I was one of the guys here helping our citizens after a thing called Katrina,” he told the crowd, which included representatives of multiple veterans service organizations and Boy Scout units. “And so, for me personally, it is a symbol of our recovery of this area and how resilient the people of greater New Orleans and south Louisiana are. We saw ourselves through that catastrophic event. We have continued to recover and rebuild and rebuild and rebuild and refused to say no.”

Federal disaster-relief funding was allocated shortly after the storm and floods had obliterated all but the top two floors of the old VA medical center in New Orleans. From there, the project began a journey that included site selection and preparation conflicts, negotiations over 100 historic buildings that had to be moved to make room for the construction, arrangements with the city and with Tulane and Louisiana State University medical schools, along with dozens of changes in the requirements for VA hospital construction along the way.

American Legion Past National Commander William Detweiler, whose home was severely damaged in the hurricane and flooding of 2005, has been at the center of the rebuilding effort since the beginning. Former U.S. Sen. Mary Landrieu, D-La., was able to secure an initial $600 million in disaster-relief funds to replace the hospital. The battle for funding continued from there, said Detweiler, who helped lobby in Washington for budget to keep the project going while lawmakers from other states were seeking VA hospital construction funds for their own areas. “It was competitive from that standpoint,” Detweiler said. “It was an uphill battle.”

Another issue was the location. Some in the business community wanted the new VA medical center outside the downtown area, but with the new University Medical Center envisioned to bring health-care faculty and students from several New Orleans-area institutions together in a fast-emerging biomedical corridor, “It just made sense to do it all downtown,” Detweiler said. “The downtown area is also a transportation hub. You can take a train, a bus, a cab, a streetcar. You can easily get to the corridor.”

Throughout it all, the project has proceeded, navigating various challenges and obstacles to reach the milestone celebrated Monday. “Seeing what happened today, seeing the flag raised, that really shows the general public that we are almost up and ready to open,” said Detweiler, who explained that the next hurdle is to bring in about 1,000 new employees – from maintenance technicians to surgeons – in a competitive environment for health-care professionals. “We have a big job in front of us to recruit a qualified medical workforce,” he said.

Between the flag and the entryway of the medical center are words the past national commander provided the VA medical director after he received a phone call some time ago. On a wall, for all who enter to see, are etched the words “THE PRICE OF FREEDOM CAN BE SEEN WITHIN THESE WALLS.”

“I gave it a little thought and came up with that phrase,” Detweiler said. “I think it very clearly defines what is going to go on within those walls.”

“Like our forefathers who gained independence through battle more than 225 years ago, ‘we on this continent should never forget that men first crossed the Atlantic not to find soil for their plows but to secure liberty for their souls,’” said Rivera, the system director who had worked for 20 years at the old New Orleans VA hospital and had been transferred to Washington, D.C., when Katrina hit; he came back to the city of his upbringing two years ago to run the southeastern Louisiana system. “On this Independence Day, it’s appropriate to recall words by Robert J. McCracken. Liberty, justice and freedom are not just ideals. They are hard-earned rights that all Americans have because the men and women we serve have secured them. We are marking a milestone in welcoming this new chapter of our health-care system.”