They call him Papa Smurf.
Claude Richard Simmons sat alone on the short stone wall in Seminary Park and smoked a cigarette.
His jeans were ripped and the hood of his brown jacket was up over the Chipotle hat on his head, hiding the arms of his glasses. People often tell him he looks like Nelson Mandela, he said.
Fellow homeless people approached him every few minutes.
“How you doing, Papa?” they would ask before briefly embracing the 63-year-old.
“Just trying to keep my old, black butt out of trouble.”
Most of them only know him by this nickname, the name Simmons’ family began calling him so many years ago when “The Smurfs” first became a cartoon — when his wife, his best friend, was still alive. Before she died of cancer in 1989.
Before he lost his self-respect. Before he moved from Indianapolis to Bloomington, where his twin sons live, and before he began sleeping on a green metal bench.
He takes pride in the nickname.
The police, the judges, the lawyers all know him by it because of his efforts to keep the park clean.
It’s a good name. Not like “baby killer,” which was what people called him when he returned from 18 months in Vietnam 42 years ago.
Two women walked by pushing a stroller that held a wide-eyed baby girl.
Simmons waved and repeated “hey, big momma” in a sweet voice while the baby watched him, her head turning back as she passed.
He loves kids, he said. He has 53 grandchildren, and they love their granddaddy.
He isn’t a baby killer.
He was a baby — the men in his battalion were babies themselves when they were drafted at 18 years old.
But no one thought about that, no one asked about the killing and the pain and the post-traumatic stress disorder. Not then, anyway.
He expresses his frustration with two words: “C’mon, man.”
Now, they recognize Vietnam veterans. C’mon, man. Now, they want to help them. C’mon, man. Now, after the war ended, they have parades and free meals and a whole day to celebrate. C’mon, man.
Now, Simmons sits alone at Seminary Park while his peers tell him their troubles and ask for advice.
He answers to the best of his ability, he said. He’s exasperated, though.
These people have children, and here they’re sleeping in tents and streets and empty fields.
He wants members of City Council to come talk to them and try to understand, to feel their pain.
Instead, he said, they sit up in their offices while these people, many who once had offices of their own, lose themselves in their struggles.
In his 12 years of being in Bloomington, he has seen four people die of drug overdoses.
C’mon, man.
Simmons looks to the sky. It’s supposed to storm tonight.
In five minutes, he’ll catch the 3 Bus to College Mall and the 8 Bus from there to the Eastside.
Then, he’ll walk about nine miles into the country to the trailer home of a 67-year-old woman who offers to put a roof over his head on nights like the one approaching.
***
As the sun set red over the white tents of the Monroe County fairgrounds, the Bloomington Brass Band played a lively March.
The fairgrounds organized a brief Veterans Day service Wednesday evening, featuring the brass band and the Grandview Elementary School choir.
The Bloomington Cub Scout Pack 121 raised flags for each branch of the military and Hannah Rinnert, the Monroe County Fair Queen, read a poem to honor vets.
Jim Kirkman, 72, the principal coronet player for the brass band, said he enjoyed seeing children enthused about the holiday.
“I think it’s good to teach kids about their history and their country,” Kirkman said.
Kirkman was in Vietnam on active duty for the army from 1963 to 1968.
He said he’d visited Lincoln Elementary School earlier in the day and witnessed an entire gymnasium of young students singing contemporary patriotic songs.
“Every kid was up, singing,” Kirkman said. “It was really cool.”
Thomasina O’Conner, the latest president of the Kiwanis Club of Bloomington, spoke about her father’s 22 years of service in the navy.
“I was raised in a military home, I grew up near a military base,” O’Conner said. “Respecting veterans has been instilled in my life since the beginning.”
Lisa Voss, the Grandview choir’s director, said she takes it upon herself to teach her students the importance of patriotism and honoring veterans before they leave grade school.
Much of Voss’ immediate family served in the marines or army, she said.
“I think it’s extremely important to teach kids patriotism,” Voss said. “So we treat veterans like celebrities.”
***
The small gymnasium was buzzing. In the front, children sat cross-legged on the floor. Behind them, rows of parents and grandparents occupied metal folding chairs. Outside the doors, where a sign said “Thank you!” in silver glitter, stood a group of people who couldn’t fit inside. Among them was Erik Godsey.
He was wearing all black — his sweatpants with a U.S. Army logo printed on the left leg. He has blond hair and blue eyes, young-looking for his 26 years.
The choir students on the risers at the opposite corner of the gym sang “Fifty, Nifty United States” and “America, Of Thee I Sing.”
He struggled for a view into what is normally his gym, his classroom. He could hear the choir singing the patriotic anthems. He’s lucky, he thought to himself, to be a part of a school that goes to such lengths to recognize veterans.
One weekend each month, Erik drives 45 miles east to Camp Atterbury. Flipping the switch from civilian life to soldier life, he’s in formation by 7 a.m. Saturday and 5 a.m. Sunday. At the camp, he’s training for Officer Candidate School.
He chose the National Guard because it allows him to keep his civilian job — teaching physical education at Marlin Elementary School in Bloomington. He loves working with kids. It’s important to educate them on health and fitness, he said. It’s something they can use for a lifetime.
The military branch songs began to play — first up was Army. Erik walked with the rest of the Army veterans and took a spot in the far corner. He took off his black jacket to reveal his black shirt reading “ARMY” in yellow letters.
After the ceremony, kids came up to Godsey to talk. A couple of them gave him a hug.
“Thank you for serving our country,” one said.
***
Morgan Napier was trying to get a man’s attention, and he wouldn’t listen.
She was sitting in the lounge area of the Veterans Support Services office at the Indiana Memorial Union, where she’d been invited for a Veterans Day lunch, and she was surrounded by men.
One, a tall, lanky boy, wore a gray sweatshirt that said USAF — United States Air Force. A second, a little sturdier, sported a green hat with the words “Task Force Flying Tigers” on it. A third — the boy whose attention Napier was trying to grab — had a smaller frame and a red IU beanie.
And then there was Napier, with straight blonde hair and wingtip black eyeliner, a lacy gray cami under a black cardigan, knee-high black boots, nails painted a light sparkly pink.
Cathy Dille, an assistant in the office, said the place is a safe zone where people can come to talk with people they know will understand. Now, the boys and Napier were discussing their training for physical fitness tests. The boy in the beanie said he needed to find somewhere to run with a visible timer, and Napier was trying to suggest the Student Recreational Sports Center — the track upstairs, where she always goes.
He wasn’t listening. Three or four times, she spoke up, but to no avail. She trailed off and raised her eyebrows.
“No one gives a shit ‘cause I’m a girl,” she said.
“That’s not true!” a bulky boy in a plaid shirt and camo hat said, but Napier said she knew it was.
She’s served in the army as a combat medic, at Fort Sam Houston in San Antonio. At 21, she’s already saved a man’s life. He’d had a bad allergic reaction in the field, and she had been the lead medic that day. It hadn’t looked good — his blood pressure had plummeted, and he was unconscious, barely breathing. Luckily, she had one dose of Epinephrine with which to treat him. Even luckier, though — he didn’t relapse after the first dose, though there was a distinct possibility he could have. It was a dicey 15 minutes of waiting.
Her battalion is about two-thirds women, but Napier said when she comes across men in the field, they can be more inclined to disregard her opinion because she’s a woman. Sometimes, they make sexist jokes or say things like “we need some men in here!” when there’s something heavy to lift.
Napier is confident that she can do as much as any man in this room, she said. Just because she’s 5-foot-3 and blonde, and wears wingtip eyeliner and knee-high black boots, doesn’t mean she isn’t just as capable.
***
Joe Hardin wore a tie with a bald eagle swooping down on the American flag. He donned his Veterans of Foreign Wars member cap — Post 604, where he’s the commander — the fabric obscured by a multiplicity of pins: “VIETNAM,” “NAVY,” pins with numbers, pins in the shape of Indiana.
He walked into the entry hall where the smell of fried potatoes hung in the air. Because it was Veterans Day, the post was open and the food was free. He introduced himself to the 26-year-old student and Air Force vet flipping the potato slices in the kitchen.
The cook’s name was Micah, and he served seven months in Qatar, seven in Afghanistan. All regular VFW members have seen foreign combat — it’s the main requirement. Because of that, membership is smaller than other organizations such as the American Legion , but it’s easier for him to relate to these guys.
He remembered enlisting after high school and winding up in the Philippines with top secret communications clearance. He remembered how the intercom blared just after he’d crawled into his bunk after working the night watch one November morning. He fell out and they told him the president had been shot, and they dropped him into jungle warfare training that same day.
“Would you like to volunteer for a mission?” he was asked at the end of training.
“Sure. Where are we going?”
“We’ll let you know when you get there.”
He remembered turning 18 in Vietnam, spending the days planting listening devices in the jungle and eating a Vietnamese diet so the enemy couldn’t identify him by his excrement. He realized the enemy was trying to do the best thing for his country, just as he was for his. He learned to respect, to forgive.
He remembered wanting to sign on for more time in Vietnam and his captain telling him to go home.
“You’ve been over here so long, your number’s coming up,” he said.
He remembered being in uniform on a bus to Golden Gate Park when a woman walked up to him and stuck her finger in his face.
“Baby killer!” she screamed. “Murderer!”
He never wanted anyone else to feel what that made him feel, so when he retired from Westinghouse at 58, he dedicated his energy to the VFW — welcoming new members, working with vets with PTSD, trying to set up a Vet Court so troubled vets can keep their records clean.
He noticed the dining room starting to fill up now. There was the career military man who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. There were volunteers and wives and a baby. There was a service dog accompanying a younger man with sad eyes.
So he sat down at the bar with a beer and a bowl of ham and beans. He made sure everyone knew about the food. After all, it was free.
***
Sometimes, Bradley “Slim” Settle, 36, stands behind the counter at Indiana Army Surplus in Bedford all day, and no one ever comes.
Those who do come through the door are mostly veterans, like Settle.
Some of them are elderly, decades removed from service, and searching for something they used to have. Items lost throughout the years or burned by ex-wives or passed on to sons or daughters that have long since grown up.
Other veteran customers are young or recently retired. They feel at home amidst the mountain packs and boots and ammunition. They take pride in knowing exactly what they’re looking at.
Around 10:30 a.m., a tall old man with wire-rimmed glasses saunters up to Settle.
“Y’all got any web belts?” he asks, squinting.
“Sure,” Settle says. “What kind you looking for?”
The man pauses.
“I dunno. Whatever kind they had a hundred years ago back when I was serving.”
Settle smiles generously at the man’s joke and leads him into the labyrinth of racks. After a few minutes, the man is checking out, seemingly pleased to have this piece of his old life back.
In the next hour, a husband and wife rent an enormous pile of gear to display in their church’s service dedicated to veterans. A veteran searches for an extra small camouflage field jacket and cap for his young grandson. Another buys heavy duty boots for his daughter, who needs them to trek across her college campus.
Many of the people in the store are seeking to honor someone for their service — attention that’s well deserved but rarely sought, said Reed Taylor, another employee.
“Most veterans aren’t just gonna tell you about their service,” Taylor said. “It’s nice for them to be recognized but they won’t ever ask for it.”
Reported by: Cassie Heeke, Anne Halliwell, Ike Hajinazarian, Alexa Chryssovergis, Jack Evans and Taylor Telford
