NEWS VETS CAN USE
Ex-sailor’s web outlet fights for service members on home front
BRONX RESIDENT Joe Bello was worried no one would advocate for him after he was discharged from the Navy 22 years ago. The 50-year-old from Parkchester was friendly with veteran leaders who served in Vietnam and during World War II.
“They are my mentors,” Bello said. “But I was younger and didn’t know who was going to advocate for me.”
So Bello began a Yahoo group to educate veterans about everything from tax benefits to parades and public hearings discussing veteran issues.
“The Mayor’s Office of Veterans’ Affairs stopped doing a newsletter,” he recalled. “We didn’t know what was going on in each borough. I picked up doing a newsletter.”
At the time, the community, which didn’t include any vets from Iraq and Afghanistan, was much smaller, he pointed out.
“Everyone pretty much knew everyone in the community,” Bello said.
At each event he attended, he’d collect as many email addresses as possible and add them to his online newsletter. Before long, Bello’s list included thousands of veterans.
“I have the biggest list server in the community,” he said, noting that he also launched a Facebook page, NY MetroVets.
In 2003, Bello (inset right) used that newsletter to mobilize scores of his brethren to protest against a proposal to shut down the veterans medical facility in Manhattan.
“We made sure our presence was heard at hearings,” he recalled. “It was a big fight back then, but we were able to show the need for the hospital.”
He’s currently fighting for better, and more uniformed, services for veterans at the 24 City University of New York campuses.
“There needs to be a streamline of systems,” he said, noting each college has its own programs. “Some campuses have minimal services.”
Bello also was instrumental in convincing the de Blasio administration to create the Department of Veterans’ Services in 2016.
The department, with a staff of approximately 35, helps veterans find housing and offers medical assistance to those suffering from mental illness.
“It was part of a white paper that I wrote during the campaign,” Bello said. “We explained to the candidates that we needed it to coordinate and provide better services for the increasing number of veterans coming back from Iraq and Afghanistan.”
When he started the newsletter, it was the only one of its kind for the 210,000 veterans in the New York region. Now there are many others covering similar ground.
“I’ve worked with all of them to some extent,” Bello said. “I’d like to think I inspired them or gave them the impetus to take things further.”
Bello served in the Navy from 1984 to 1995 on various ships, including the battleship South Carolina and the Nimitz, a supercarrier. He was honorably discharged due to his worsening asthma.