Duty Still Calls Veteran : Desire to Help Puts Harry Kundin in Driver’s Seat

SIMI VALLEY —  He’s just a regular Joe, or that’s what Harry Kundin will tell you when he talks about himself.

Kundin has been out of the service since 1945, but the 78-year-old retired electrician says he still has a duty to serve his country and fellow veterans.

That’s why at least once a week--and as often as three times a week--Kundin drives a sleek red, white and blue van that takes disabled veterans to the Sepulveda Veterans Administration Medical Center in Van Nuys and to the West Los Angeles Veterans Medical Center for physical therapy and treatment.

“What he’s doing is very important because men like me can’t drive,” said former Air Force medic Henry Leon, 58, who helped treat wounded men being flown back from Vietnam.

Leon is legally blind and can only see shadows. Most mornings, cane in hand, he waits for the van by a fire hydrant on Kuehner Drive.

Leon goes to the hospital to be treated for diabetes and heart problems. He is also learning skills to cope with his blindness, he said.

Leon is a regular on the van, which has as few as three or as many as 12 passengers.

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The 14-seat-van was purchased in 1994 after members of the Simi Valley chapter of Disabled American Veterans persuaded the city of Simi Valley and the National Disabled American Veterans Department to donate $18,000 to buy the van. The Ventura chapter of the Disabled American Veterans also runs a daily shuttle to the hospital.

Kundin, an Army Air Corps veteran who served in Burma during World War II and now heads the Simi chapter, has already logged more than 5,000 miles shuttling veterans to and from appointments.

“It’s good for me,” he said. “I don’t want to stay around the house and become a vegetable, and besides I’m just doing my duty and serving my country.”

Kundin is one of six Simi Valley volunteers, all members of the local chapter of the Disabled American Veterans, who drive the veterans. There are more than 200 members of Disabled American Veterans in Simi Valley.

One early morning, Kundin picks up two men at the Simi Valley Senior Center--former infantryman Ed Macbeth, 70, who served in the Pacific, and 77-year-old Nick Lamagna, who fired anti-aircraft guns as a soldier in Europe.

“They didn’t have earmuffs like they do today, so you’re going to have to speak up for Nick,” Kundin said, while watching the two men slowly step up into the van.

“I sat with .50-caliber and 40-millimeter guns firing on both sides of my head,” Lamagna said. “That doesn’t do wonders for your hearing.”

He was also headed to the hospital for treatment of his arthritis.

“They pack some heat on my knees and have me do exercises and things,” Lamagna said. “It helps.”

After dropping off Lamagna, Macbeth, and two other men, Kundin checks in with a volunteer who helps to coordinate the volunteer van drivers from Ventura, Antelope Valley and the San Fernando Valley.

Kundin himself carries with him a wartime disability.

He has trouble breathing because during basic training his nose was broken in a hand-to-hand combat drill. He didn’t want to get the reputation of being a goldbricker, so he never complained. The injury rearranged the cartilage in his nose and within a year a doctor said he would have to operate. The operation was botched, Kundin said, leaving him with trouble breathing and horrendous sinus headaches.

“I don’t like talking about it,” he said.

After checking in with the volunteer coordinator, Kundin, wearing a Disabled American Veterans baseball hat with pins showing his 500 hours of volunteer service, heads to another office for volunteers to drop off donated books and pick up a meal ticket.

Mostly romance novels, the books are all paperbacks.

“We can’t give them hardbacks because the patients that are a little ‘touched’ throw them at each other,” Kundin said, while wheeling a cart full of the donated books.

He moves a little slow, but will keep up his pace most of the day. He said it’s good for him.

“The doctors told me I should walk until my feet hurt, so I keep on moving,” Kundin said.

FYI

To schedule an appointment for shuttle service, veterans in Simi Valley should call 526-9237. To schedule an appointment for shuttle service in Ventura, Oxnard, or Camarillo, veterans should call 385-8500.