DUNCAN ADAMS
The Butte afternoon burned with heat but lacked the sweltering humidity and incoming artillery of Guam or Vietnam.
The mood was celebratory but lacked a youthful sailor exuberantly kissing a pretty young woman in the town square. Though it seemed clear that James Ingram, a veteran of the U.S. Navy and a resident of the Southwest Montana Veterans Home, would have readily volunteered for such duty.
Tuesdayâs celebration focused on fruition: achieving a long-sought goal of providing dignified housing, activities and nursing care for aging veterans of the U.S. Armed Forces, especially veterans with ties to southwest Montana.
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Thatâs according to U.S. Sen. Jon Tester, D-Mont.
On Tuesday afternoon, Tester and Secretary of Veterans Affairs Denis McDonough toured the veterans home during a stop in Butte.
People in Butte never give up, Tester said.
Regional veterans teamed up with politicians and others to bring the $20 million project to fruition. Tester, current chairman of the Senate Committee on Veterans Affairs, had helped secure funding for the project, as had other politicians from both parties.
âThis is good for our veterans,â he said.
Some of those veterans were turned away Tuesday afternoon when they came for the visit by Tester and McDonough. They were told that attendance at the indoor meeting had to be limited because of COVID-19.
He was welcomed Monday by Montana Governor Greg Gianforte, among other dignitaries, staff and community members.
Davis retired in 1976 after 10 years in the U.S. Army and 10 years in the U.S. Air Force.
In Montana, veterans represent 10 percent of the population.
âWhen you enter a facility like this, it is nursing care, said William Willing, chair of the Southwest Montana Veterans Home Selection Committee. It s towards the end of your life for the veterans. We re trying to make you feel a warm home environment, you know, a safe place. Instead of an institutional type of hospital setting.â
According to the United States Department of Veterans Affairs, up to 30 percent of veterans can struggle with post-traumatic stress disorder.
Southwest Montana Veterans Home Opens In Butte
The new Southwest Montana Veterans Home welcomed its first resident Monday. The grand opening is a big deal in Butte, where regional veterans have waited nearly 30 years for a facility to call their own.
80-year-old Bill Davis is the first of what will eventually be 60 veterans to call the $20 million facility home.
Southwest Montana Veterans Home
Former State Sen. Jon Sesso says southwest Montana vets needed a place to call their own. Well over a third of the 100,000 veterans in Montana live in the southwestern part of the state, so this really gives a good geographical mix to where the veterans live by population in our state.