'Operation Tom' raises money for disabled Vietnam veteran

Story and photo by Senior Contributing Writer Alice Gerard

In 2023, Jeremy Young, a sergeant major with the U.S. Army reserves, was asked to accompany a Vietnam veteran on an honor flight to Washington, D.C.

“National Fuel is the presenting sponsor of the Honor Flight. That’s who I work for,” Young said. “So, they look for volunteers to go on the Honor Flight. They go to the employees first, any of the vets who are within the company, and they sponsor two a year.”

The man that Young, who works in Amherst, was asked to accompany was Tom Dunfee. Both are residents of Pennsylvania.

“I was on the list, and Tom didn’t have anybody. They (Buffalo Honor Flight) called National Fuel, and they called me. They paired me up with Tom. At that time, I was a first sergeant in the Army. He was in Vietnam for two tours.”

At the time, Young was also dealing with his own issues.

“I just got back from deployment,” he said. “I had some stuff going on. My dad died. You get pulled in all directions. I came home. I didn’t connect with my old friends. You just shut them out and isolate. But then, you age.”

“Within five minutes (of meeting Tom), I was busting his chops, like he was a young soldier,” Young related. “He was an infantry gunner. From there, we stuck together all day. I escorted him through Washington. At night, we came back. I had to get him back to Warren. We had a Korean War vet with us. He got sick, so we had to put him in the hospital. I had to bring Tom here. Then the Blue Star moms stepped in, and they got him home. Once he got home, I saw that he lived in a little 12-by-12 dump. It was like an apartment. It actually was a motel room, but it wasn’t.”

He said the place was bad, but, “I was able to stop that pretty quickly. I got him a bed. A little later, I got him into the Rouse Home in Warren. It’s a nice place. First they have apartments. Then they have assisted living … then they have … senior living.”

That was the start of a relationship between Dunfee and Young that led to a fundraising event on Aug. 16 on Grand Island, to raise money for a new vehicle for Dunfee.

Despite being a time of a difficult adjustment for Young, it was also the start of a collaboration between Young and Kelly Gast, an Island resident. The two of them also began discussing the potential of a bigger project to help other veterans who may not have their own support structure. They started with supporting Dunfee find the help that he needed to have more quality of life, and they called their grassroots fundraising project “Operation Tom.”

“Ironically, Jeremy and I met at the same time as the honor flight,” Gast said. “When I went down to visit, I met Tom. It touched my heart that this guy, who served our country, lived the way he lived. I quickly came to realize that he had no friends and no family.

“When I first started going down, (I saw that) he has mobility issues. He can’t clean. He can’t pick up. He can’t cut his food. (Young) and I are a good tag team. He does all the big things. He takes care of his medical, his VA benefits. He keeps him alive. He had no benefits. He had 10% disability when Jeremy met him.

“Through (Young and me) coming together and helping Tom, it made me realize that how many other Toms are there out there in the world? How many lonely veterans are out there? And getting older. Tom … Jeremy and I … that’s all he has in this world. If he didn’t have us, he would have nobody.

“There are a lot of ways to help. What I do, I do a lot of the little things. I take him to lunch. I clean his apartment. I bring him food. Jeremy does the big stuff. I do all the little stuff. I organize getting clothes donated, money donated so he can do things and go places and have gas to go to McDonald's and do those types of things.”

Dunfee, who served in the U.S. Army from 1969-72, saw two tours of duty in Vietnam as a gunner. After the war, he returned home to Pennsylvania.

“My father didn’t like me going into the Army,” Dunfee said. “When I went back, they didn’t like that. I did what I wanted to, and I had fun. I got home. I got married. I worked. I couldn’t take it anymore. Them complaining about everything I did.”

Dunfee said he is looking forward to all the things he could do once he has a vehicle.

“I would take off and go to Erie to see my two kids. I haven’t seen them in four months now,” he said.

Dunfee noted he would like to go to church, go fishing, visit the park, and watch people play pickleball. He would also want to go to his PTSD group at the Welcome Center in Warren County, as well as his meetings at the VA, where there is also a Life Center.

Dunfee said he enjoys going to the Life Center a few times a week to “sit around, talk, play games.”

Young added, “There’s a doctor on board and they also take care of housekeeping.”

“He very much appreciates having us and the change that has brought to his life,” Gast said. “I know there are other people like me that would be interested in connecting with a veteran. Maybe it’s once a month, taking them to coffee, to lunch, to dinner, to a family function, to do their laundry. Something like that. I don’t have a lot of money, but I do have time and I have talent. They can help people in other ways.

“What I’m hoping is that this effort will inspire other people to come forward to want to help care for veterans. Will I start my own nonprofit? It’s kind of a dream, but I do think there’s a mechanism that can be put into place to create a database or something. Maybe that’s something I will facilitate. Maybe it’s connecting through VFWs and different veterans organizations that always know who’s the lonely guy who goes to the bar and sits there and has nobody in his life. We can connect them with other families in their area. It’s kind of my greater vision in connecting people who want to help.

“Look at the people who are here today. Everyone wants to help somebody. People get nervous donating to big organizations or big groups because they don’t know where their money is going. This is a way for people to give and know that that money goes right into someone’s pocket.

“It’s important not to forget. For me, the irony is we have people who have fought on the front lines in places doing things that none of us could ever fathom or imagine for our independence, and then they lose their homes. To me, that is not acceptable.”

Donations for Tom’s continuing support can be made at https://www.gofundme.com/f/operation-tom-army.