Vets proponent determined to ensure service is rewarded

Roosevelt Gary is a 90-yer-old Army veteran and advocate for benefits earned in service of their country.

Gary, a decorated former Army counterintelligence officer retired on 70% disability makes it his personal agenda to inform and speak out on issues that prevent deserving veterans from receiving benefits.

“With all the uncertainty and targeted restrictions and denials coming out of Washington these days, what I do is more critical than ever,” said Gary, a 1953 graduate of Second Ward High School. “Countless thousands of veterans are in living hell and their families constantly struggling in everything from housing ad healthcare to food and transportation and other related issues.”

Gary’s primary activist platform is chairman of the Veterans Affairs Committee of the Second Ward-West Charlotte Men’s Breakfast Club, a weekly gathering of former rivals who opened their gathering to men alumni from any high school. At its peak membership, the club featured more than 160 members, a large percentage of them military veterans who don’t receive the benefits they deserve.

Gary attended Johnson C. Smith University for a semester before moving to New York City where he sought a better life with a good job. 

“I found racism up there, too, but in a different form,” he said. “It was still racism. So, I took the path of least resistant and joined the Army. It seemed to me to be the path of least resistance for successful achievement.”

It proved to be the right move. Gary’s two decades of service landed him in top security positions in three U.S. campaigns and finally at the Pentagon until he retired. Those accomplishments, he admits, has given him some privilege and access that many veterans of lesser achievement have failed to get and often give up trying when rejected through Veterans Affairs channels.

“Many actually and sadly give up trying,” he said. “But, I do this to help them fight for what is rightfully theirs. They shouldn’t give up. And that’s why I do what I do here with the club and anywhere somebody needs me.

“Being a vet, you don’t know what’s coming up now almost day-to-day. I know the system well, and the problem for veterans today is the fact that VA is failing in communicating to veterans and the vets too often lack the knowledge necessary to navigate the system. And in this time of political, social and economic distress, our veterans are in dire straits of uncertainty. 

“This is no time to sit back and let folks ignore you and not provide services that you need and deserve. You have to demand them because the VA is not likely going to voluntarily call you in.”

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