Published: May 06, 2008 10:39 pm         

Vietnam vets make up most of VA’s patients

As age and disease invade their ranks, veterans of World War II and the Korean Conflict are becoming a vanishing breed.

For that reason, the next war in historical sequence — Vietnam — is providing the majority of patients at the Beckley VA Medical Center, and following in their wounded footsteps are those from Iraq and Afghanistan.

Each month witnesses some 1,500 veterans seeking help from the Beckley facility. Last year, visits numbered around 159,000.

“I can remember a time when we had about 60,000 outpatient visits,” recalls the facility’s new director, Karin McGraw.

A Fayetteville native, McGraw was elevated to the post last month, replacing Gerald Husson, now an aide to the VA’s chief financial officer.

The new director and her husband, Gary, a retired State Police officer, are the parents of two daughters, Amanda and Laura, and a granddaughter, Mary.

For the record, the Beckley VA facility accepts veterans in its primary service area from Clay, Fayette, Greenbrier, McDowell, Mercer, Monroe, Nicholas, Pocahontas, Raleigh, Summers and Wyoming counties in West Virginia, and Tazewell in County in Virginia.

The facility employs 663 people.

West Virginia is near the top in the per capita concentrations of veterans.

“People laugh when they look at the size of West Virginia and they say, ‘Why do you need four VAs in a state that size, and you see larger states out West with only one or two,’” McGraw said.

That, she is quick to point out, is because West Virginia is home to a larger-than-usual percentage of veterans.

“We have a very patriotic community,” McGraw said. “And a lot of young men and women have chosen not just to be drafted but to enlist in the military to defend their country. And we want to be able to take care of them when they come back.”