My brother returned from a year in Vietnam
in 1970 when I was 14 years old. I was excited
to have him back home alive, but more
excited to have a “war hero” in my family.
My father could not serve in WWII because
he lost a finger as a teenager, but I always
marveled at the war stories from my uncles
who served in Europe and the Pacific. Now
it was my turn to have a true hero in my
immediate family.
One of the first things I asked my brother
upon his return was, “Did you kill anyone?”
Remember, I was an excited 14-year-old at
the time and did not understand the
complexities of war.
they desperately needed), Dr. Patricia Arola,
the Assistant Under Secretary for Health for
Dentistry for the Veterans Administration,
addressed our council. She stated that as
bad as access to medical care was for veterans,
access to dental care is even more challenging.
She asked if the dental societies could do
anything about this.
Soon after, as a site visitor for CODA I was
on the team reviewing a VA hospital in a
neighboring state and saw some of this
first hand. A veteran came in with pain
and swelling on #8 and asked for it to be
extracted and replaced. The attending
dentist explained that an extraction was
possible but a
replacement was
not because the
veteran did not
qualify for
comprehensive
care. I discovered
that although
they could
provide emergency care for this patient,
comprehensive care in the VA dental clinics
is available only to those veterans who are
100% disabled (with a few other exceptions).
When I asked why they could not make a
“flipper” for the man and just charge him
for it, they responded that by law they are
not allowed to do so.
Our Underserved Veterans
YO U R C A L L TO AC T I O N
By Dr. Charles Incalcaterra,
PDA President
32
To this day I will never forget his response –
“Don’t ever ask me about the war again.”
And I never did. It was nearly 50 years
before he finally spoke of his experiences
there, and even to this day he reveals very
few details.
I bring this up because one of my goals as
PDA President is to bring to the forefront
the issue of underserved veterans who do
not have access to dental care. While serving
on the ADA Council on Government Affairs,
I discovered that the military service
organizations gave us an annual report.
Soon after the problems with the VA
system were exposed (where veterans
were unable to get the medical care that
JA NUA RY/F E B R UA RY 2020 | P EN N S YLVA N IA D EN TA L J O U R N A L
Fast forward a few years to our Mission
of Mercy event in Reading where I helped
with dental triage. A man in his late 30s
came in for screening wearing camouflage
pants and a dark green tee shirt. I asked if
he was a veteran and he nodded yes. When
I asked him where he served, his terse
response was “In the desert.” My brother’s