Wounded veterans get day on the town

By Bryan McKenzie

Published: August 1, 2008

Wash the Volvo, put on your clean jeans and, for crying out loud, comb your hair. We’re having guests down from the nation’s capital.

A group of wounded veterans out of Walter Reed Medical Hospital will be getting a historical sightseeing tour of Charlottesville and Albemarle County today, courtesy of Merrill Lynch, Monticello, the University of Virginia and Michie Tavern.

How many will show?

“There may be 10 or 12 or even 40; we won’t know until Saturday because some people will sign up and then not feel well enough to go,” explained Bryan Hagen, of Charlottesville’s Merrill Lynch office. “We’ll do some short tours — we don’t want to put too much walking into it — and give everyone a look at the area.”

Getting the veterans, their friends and families into A.C. from D.C. took some tag-team play between two nonprofits, the Blue and Gray Education Society and the Yellow Ribbon Fund. Blue and Gray promotes Civil War history and research while the Yellow Ribbon Fund helps wounded veterans and families in a variety of ways.

One major method is getting the recovering soldiers out of the hospital and into society. In a few short years, the fund has paid for 700 rental cars, 9,000 taxi rides, 5,800 overnight stays and tickets to sporting events, concerts, plays, lunches, dinners, golf games, duck and goose hunts, fishing trips and historical tours.

“We’ve organized events several times with Blue and Gray and the [soldiers] have had a great time,” said Marie Wood, vice president and director of communications for the Yellow Ribbon Fund. “There were concerns this time because of some medical issues and Charlottesville being farther away, but we were able to make the arrangements for the trip. ”

Major landmarks

The veterans — most wounded in Iraq or Afghanistan — will meet Mr. Hagen at the Ruckersville Sheetz store, where he will discuss local history in general. From there, they will take a quick tour of Court Square. Afterward, it’s off to Monticello, lunch at Michie Tavern and a tour of The Lawn and UVa.

The tour isn’t free, although it’s free to the soldiers. The ribbon fund is helping to pay for the buses. Michie Tavern has offered special group rates. Monticello is waiving the entrance fee and UVa is making sure parking is up close and guides are available. Mr. Hagen, a local historian, is providing the perspective and his coworkers have helped to defray costs.

“[My colleagues] have been wonderful in helping out and I think the vets will have a good time,” he said. “This is an important region, historically. We have two United Nations historical sites here with UVa and Monticello. We forget how lucky we are and it’s nice to share it.”