American Heads Retraining Effort : El Salvador’s Disabled War Veterans Battle Back

Ernesto Bermudez is the shame of the Salvadoran army, his amputated leg an embarrassment to a military that prefers to ignore those ordinary troopers whose war-caused handicaps are a constant reminder of the costs of being a soldier here.

Faced with a military so indifferent to their situation that it provides no serious job training or financial support past a short-term disability payment, Bermudez and about a dozen other disabled veterans have banded together under the leadership of a former Carmel, Calif., firefighter to train and rehabilitate themselves for an independent life.

They make plaques for businesses, organizations and government agencies. It may not seem like much, but David Wiesenfeld’s idea to manufacture and sell intricate and elaborate plaques is providing job training, an income and a purpose for living to people with little other opportunity.

Insignias Vary

The products, usually showing the trademark or insignia of a company or government agency, range from about a foot square to large seals such as those seen in an embassy or presidential residence.

They are all made by hand, from the cutting of the Salvadoran cedar boards to the microscopic lettering to the painting.

“It’s something I never thought I could do,” said Freddy Barahona Hernandez, one of the first members of the co-op. His left leg has been amputated.

The only thing done by an outsider is the designs, which are drawn by an artist hired by the veterans. A simple door plaque sells for the equivalent of about $60, while a three-foot-square insignia that might adorn an ambassador’s office goes for about $500.

In the two years since Wiesenfeld founded the group, sales have run between $15,000 and $20,000 a year. So far, this has not been enough, and Wiesenfeld’s family in California has subsidized both his living costs and some of the co-op’s expenses.

From all this, the veterans receive about $75 a month plus room and board in the co-op’s house, a pleasant three-bedroom home in the working-class neighborhood of San Antonio Abad. The house also serves as the group’s workshop.

In addition, some of the men get a temporary military disability payment ranging up to $140 a month depending on the severity of their injury. The payments last no more than 24 months after the injury.

But in the words of Ernesto Bermudez, “What is most important is that I get to work and to learn a trade.”

While the military maintains a hospital for wounded soldiers that does a good job in physical rehabilitation, almost nothing is done to train the wounded for a civilian job.

Most of the 15 men now working in the co-op are foot amputees, the result of their having stepped on mines placed by the Marxist guerrillas who have been seeking the overthrow of the government in a nine-year civil war.

However, two workers lost legs in the fighting and another, Luis Vincente Caceres, is disabled by a severe spinal injury suffered during El Salvador’s 1969 war with Honduras.

“I came here,” Caceres said, “when I heard about the program from other veterans. For me, this is fantastic, different from anything I’ve done.”

Since his injury, he said, the only work the military gave him was “standing around in the estado mayor (army headquarters). I learned nothing there.”

The 35-year-old Wiesenfeld came to El Salvador and his work with the handicapped almost by accident.

“I was a fireman in Carmel from 1972 to 1982,” he said in an interview. “I had a girlfriend who was going to Guatemala, and since I had never done anything exciting in my life, I decided to drive to Central America.”

After failing in an effort to set up an export business selling Guatemalan textiles to the United States, Wiesenfeld moved south to El Salvador in early 1987.

After trying and then dropping the idea of exporting Salvadoran art and handicrafts, he decided to try making plaques representing the insignia of U.S. fire departments, selling them in the States and using the proceeds to buy equipment for firefighters here.

Decided to Use Wounded Vets

“I got the idea of using the wounded veterans when I saw some of them outside the military hospital,” he said. “It reminded me that my mother had worked with the handicapped.”

Wiesenfeld says he first approached military officials.

“They turned me down flat,” he said. “A colonel told me I had a million-dollar idea and wanted my jeep as a bribe.”

However, a lieutenant in a special forces battalion agreed to help, and in December, 1987, Wiesenfeld opened for business with four wounded veterans and a former hotel manager to teach carpentry and painting. Soon afterward, 26 veterans were involved, but, says Wiesenfeld, “the army threatened to take away disability payments, and 13 left.”

He said the military has accused him of mistreating the veterans.

“No one admits it,” he went on, “but the opposition is because we embarrass them. There is resentment that one gringo on his own can do something they never thought about nor duplicated.”

Wiesenfeld says he has written President Alfredo Cristiani three times without an answer. “The only help I got from the government was from Inez Duarte (wife of former President Jose Napoleon Duarte), who commissioned two plaques for a charitable committee she headed.”

With the government providing little help, the veterans have turned to local and American companies and U.S. government agencies.

In addition, Antel, the Salvadoran telephone company, has purchased 144 plaques, the co-op’s largest order.

In spite of such business from local firms, Wiesenfeld says that without cooperation from the government, his only hope for long-term success is foreign markets.

Wiesenfeld has asked the U.S. Agency for International Development not only to buy plaques for its offices around the world but also to provide funds to underwrite an increase in his operation. That request is pending.

“I hope AID sees the seriousness of our work,” he says. “I’ve started something and want to see it through. But if things with AID don’t pan out and no one else steps in to help, I will go somewhere else. I think we can train anywhere if given a chance.”