Ledger Inquirer: 2015 a good year for helping vets

It's been a good year here at Inquirer Central, especially since we got to help out a couple of veterans.

Back in February and March, we wrote about not just any old veteran, but retired Master Sgt. Vincent Melillo. He was a member of the famed Merrill's Marauders, one of the baddest bunch of dudes in World War II, which had more than its share of bad dudes.

I'm sad to report that Melillo, 97, passed away on Christmas Eve. He had been living with his caretaker daughter Jonnie Melillo Clasen in Benning Hills, where he'd lived since the early 1950s. He was having problems with rainwater runoff from the wooded lot and there was nothing the city could do about it.

In steps Sam Rhodes, president and CEO of Warrior Outreach, whose group cleared a lot of overgrowth, scraped and painted the house and replaced some aging sliding glass doors. But most importantly, they took down and replaced a failing retaining wall and put in a drain system that will direct the runoff away from the house's foundation.

That's a lot of work.

"Yes it is," Rhodes said. "But I can't think of another veteran in our county who deserves it more."

We can't either. Rest in peace, sergeant.

Across town and a few months later, I met Doc, a former Special Forces Vietnam veteran who lives in the Fox Chapel subdivision. His problem was that the house next door was vacant and in foreclosure and had a swimming pool that looked like it was holding tar and was producing mosquitoes like the Duggar family.

Ironically, it was a Veterans Administration foreclosure, and this veteran was having trouble getting anything done about the problem.

So, I did what I do best: make snide and snarky comments about the federal bureaucracy moving at the rate of a drunken sloth.

Lo and behold, someone sent a link to the column to VA HQ in D.C., and they responded immediately. The pool was drained, cleaned and was being refilled when I went by to check on that Thursday. The reason I went to check on it was that I received an email from someone with the VA's public affairs office informing me that they were on top of the matter.

Doc certainly was pleased.

"Yes, they drained it, cleaned it and I don't know what else they did," Doc said. "We're really proud of what you did, and the neighbors are too."

Sometimes it's the snarky wheel that gets the grease.

Update

Readers of last week's column about the potentially dangerous dead tree along the fence at Cooper Creek Park will be glad to know that the problem has been taken care of. I got an email Tuesday from the property management company that manages the apartments on that side of the fence, telling me that they had taken the tree down that morning. Thanks!

Seen something that needs attention? Contact me at 706-571-8570 or mowen@ledger-enquirer.com.

This story was originally published December 27, 2015 at 7:49 PM with the headline "Ledger Inquirer: 2015 a good year for helping vets ."