Nation’s Veterans Saluted : Tributes: Many VA hospital patients in Sepulveda can’t attend celebrations--so the parade comes to them. Rites in West L.A. focus on ex-soldiers who now live on the streets.

As people throughout Southern California celebrated the service and sacrifice of America’s veterans, a West Los Angeles ceremony Monday focused on the thousands of soldiers who once defended the country but now live on its streets.

And in Sepulveda, patients at the Veterans Administration Medical Center didn’t have to go far to see a parade in their honor on Veterans Day.

“Veterans don’t get out to see the parades around town, so we brought the parade in to them,” hospital spokesman Ron Vincent said. “This is the community’s way to let them know that they are not forgotten, that they are important.”

High school bands and drill teams, local veterans groups and members of the Raiderettes cheerleading squad circled the grounds of the medical center as about 200 veterans watched.

Some stood along the parade route, while others sat in wheelchairs. Those who were unable to leave their rooms looked out from the windows.

The “internal parade” was the center’s first.

“We’re hoping it’s going to be an annual event,” Vincent said. “They were really very touched.”

In Westwood, nearly 200 people gathered on the grounds of the West Los Angeles Veterans Administration Medical Center, where a group of politicians, homeless activists and veterans said the government must recognize those now fighting for shelter, jobs and medical assistance.

Such needs were underscored by the release of a Veterans Day report by the National Coalition for the Homeless stating that roughly one-third of all homeless single men nationwide are veterans. The report cited federal statistics that show between 150,000 and 250,000 veterans are homeless on any given night--an estimate that National Coalition representatives say is probably low.

“A quarter of a million veterans are on the street,” coalition representative Gary Blasi told the crowd. “That means on any given night there are 20 divisions on the street. Many are in camps downtown. But they’re not in tents. They’re in boxes. . . . This time we’ve sent them out alone, and they’re fighting a lonely fight.”

The report, calling the federal government’s response to the problem “shamefully inadequate,” specifically criticized federal veterans affairs administrators. It said VA hospitals regularly send veterans back to the streets or shelters after they have completed treatment programs.

Rep. Maxine Waters (D-Los Angeles), a member of the House Veterans Affairs Committee, said a growing number of veterans and concerned citizens are demanding change.

“It’s a new day,” said Waters, the ceremony’s keynote speaker. “The lie that has prevailed for so long--that America is taking care of its veterans--is being dismantled.”

Paul West, associate director of the West Los Angeles VA Medical Center, agreed that the federal government needs to continue examining ways to solve the problem of homelessness, but said his facility serves homeless veterans through several on-site programs.

He also announced that there are plans to develop a long-term drug and alcohol rehabilitation program for homeless veterans in a vacant building belonging to the medical center.

Other dignitaries and entertainers appearing at the ceremony included state Sen. Charles M. Calderon (D-Whittier), talk show host Montel Williams, and singers Melissa Manchester and Freda Payne. U.S. Sen. John Seymour spoke at an earlier ceremony held at the facility and visited patients unable to attend the outdoor festivities.

In ceremonies throughout the region, Southern Californians saluted America’s newest veterans from the Persian Gulf, honored the veterans of earlier wars and remembered soldiers who never made it home but may still be alive in Southeast Asia.

In Simi Valley, taps was sounded at the new Ronald Reagan Presidential Library, where more than 500 people listened to retired Lt. Gen. Herbert Temple, commander-in-chief of the national Military Order of World Wars, give the keynote address.

At another ceremony, consuls general from countries including Great Britain, Mexico and the Philippines attended the 32nd annual West Coast Sacred Torch Ceremonies at Forest Lawn Memorial-Park in Hollywood Hills.

Somber tributes were held at Pasadena City Hall and in Long Beach.

And in Ventura County, more than 1,000 people, many of them waving miniature American flags, showed up at Plaza Park in Oxnard for the dedication of the Oxnard Veterans Memorial, a five-pyramid monument representing the five U.S. wars since 1917.

Back at the VA Medical Center in West Los Angeles, Herbert McLain, a homeless Vietnam War veteran, watched the pomp and circumstance and shook his head.

“A lot of these people are out here for one day and they’ll go back to their homes,” said McLain, who said he moved from a box on Skid Row to a garden near the medical center two years ago. “The vets who sleep on the grounds, they’re not here because they’ve been disappointed before.”

He claimed that nearly 30 men, who may have fought with him in Vietnam or fought before him in another war, now live alongside him--homeless, on the grounds.

“I’ve slept worse here,” he said, “than I slept in Vietnam.”