Vietnam veteran finds his footing
Sgt. Aylward has come full-circle
The Vietnam War was just ending when Army Sgt. Joseph Aylward left. Some of his uncles and cousins had enlisted. So Aylward followed suit, only to find himself in a conflict that he describes as a “(expletive) show.”
“Nobody knew what they were doing or what they were trying to accomplish,” the 61-yearold Stoughton native says. “I saw little kids get killed.”
When he came home, his family was supportive, Aylward said, but other people were “indifferent.”
“They just didn’t care,” he said. “It had nothing to do with them, and they didn’t want anything to do with it.”
So Aylward moved around a lot, finding it hard to stay rooted to one place.
In 2001, he started his own chimney-sweep business. But by 2015, drugs and alcohol dominated his life.
Aylward lost his business and returned to a life of transience, staying with friends, in shelters or in hallways.
On Dec. 4, 2017, he found his way to the New England Center and Home for Veterans, a Boston shelter that offered him transitional housing and the kind of support that helped him become sober.
“That place has been very good to me,” said Aylward. “It’s helped me put my feet back on the ground.”
The center also found him an apartment of his own on the Allston-Brighton line that he’s due to move into on Dec. 30.
“I have no idea what that will be like,” Aylward said. “I just want peace and quiet.”