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Each morning, Hayes and the other medical personnel checked the computer to see if it was their turn to head for the war zone.
"We were always ready to go, and even though I wasn't called, quite a few of us were, and every day we were saying goodbye to somebody," she said. Hayes' duties in the Dayton VA's 36-bed Hospice Care Unit include coordinating the program and comforting patients and family members.
The unit is a warm and cheerful place. There are always fresh flowers. Sometimes the whole floor is wrapped in the aroma of baking cookies.
"Often, after a patient passes away, his or her family members continue to come to the unit to visit the other patients. We took care of a Tuskegee Airman here . . . and a guy with three tours of duty in Vietnam . . . and 104-year-old man who was a veteran of World War I and World War II. Our patients are neat, fascinating people, and we spoil them rotten," RN Jennifer Bloom says.
Secretary Jane Smith agreed. "Whenever I hear somebody refer to hospice nurses as 'The Death Nurses,' I say 'No way!' We're working here because we want to be working here. We feel it when a patient dies. We do a lot of hugging and crying."
The unit also relies on some of the Dayton VA's more than 1,400 volunteers, including about 200 high school and college students.
"You name it, volunteers do it here," said Sharon Croteau, 47, chief of center's voluntary services. "They run bingo games, escort patients to appointments, even cook breakfast for hospice patients. They save us more than $1 million a year with the time they donate. Best of all, anyone can volunteer and no special skills are required."
Long before visitors to the Patient Tower Hospital see Winnie Gaunder, the aroma of fresh-popped popcorn tells them the 75-year-old Beavercreek resident is at her post in the lobby. The cheerful Gaunder has been making, salting, bagging and selling popcorn at the Dayton VA Medical Center for more than 30 years. Some days, she sells as many as 100 bags.
"I started over in the recreation building after I visited the center and saw how badly they needed volunteers and, except for the year I took off after having a series of strokes, I've been doing it ever since," Gaunder said.
A small bag of popcorn costs a quarter, a larger one 50 cents.
"There's definitely something about the smell of popcorn that catches people's attention and makes them smile," Gaunder said. "When people ask me why I do this, I just tell them I'm doing something for the veterans, because they did so much for us."
That same kind of dedication drives Bob George, a Korean War veteran whose tasks as a VA volunteer are from retrieving unused wheelchairs to directing patients to the many offices and clinics inside the hospital.
In his spare time, George cares for the tiny flags that flutter in a flower garden on the VA grounds and the much larger flags that decorate the Dayton Korean War Memorial on Riverside Drive.
"We lost a helluva lot of young men in Korea, but I was lucky enough to come back without a scratch," the Dayton native and Roosevelt High School graduate said. "I do this because it gives me more satisfaction than sitting around whining. Besides, when vets are happy, it makes me feel good."
Hayes, who could attain the rank of colonel within two years, joined the Army at the end of the Vietnam War to earn money for college. She was sent to Fort Carson, Colo., where she was placed in a medical battalion and began training to become an Army medic.
"I was fresh out of high school, a green, 18-year-old private, and there still weren't many women in the military field units," the mother of two teenage daughters recalled. "The day my father dropped me off at the bus station in Mount Cory to go to the Army, he told me, 'You know, you really don't have to do this,' but this is what I wanted, and it has turned out to be everything I dreamed it would be. I enjoy having two families - my biological family and my Army family."
She glanced again at the note on her office door. "When my military career is over, I may just come back to the VA Center . . . and become a volunteer."
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