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put Lombardi at ease. Putting on a uniform every day and working in a
paramilitary structure with platoons and squads felt familiar, but the
transferable skills proved to exceed that similarity.
“(You’re) alert in situations and can handle the stress at work and at
home,” reasoned Lombardi about the balance a good law enforcement
officer needs to find. “You’ve refined your senses, you’re more acclimated
and you might be able to better judge scenes and people.”
His career in law enforcement led to NJ State PBA President Pat Colligan placing Lombardi on the State Veterans Committee, where he is able
to help young soldiers returning home from Afghanistan and Iraq who
entered law enforcement.
“When I came back from ‘Nam, I suffered from PTSD,” admitted Lombardi. “I saw a psychiatrist every week for 10 years. We didn’t come back
as a group or a unit – we came back as individuals – and were given very
little support. Now when (veterans) come back from these wars there’s a
lot of help available for them.”
Especially from the NJ State PBA, through which Lombardi works with
the VA Hospital in Lyons to get contact information and resources for
those suffering from PTSD. At a recent Local 600 meeting, 11 Veterans
signed up for benefits and assistance.
“If you have questions or need assistance, contact us,” pleaded Lombardi. “We’ll reach out to you and get you the information on who to
speak to. We’ve been fighting the system for 40 years since we got back
from Vietnam and we know all the little tricks.”
Lombardi continues to work with The New Jersey Vietnam Veterans’
Foundation, the only state museum devoted entirely to the Vietnam War.
He helped track down a helicopter used by the 116th Aviation Group in
Vietnam, refurbish it and placed it at the memorial site in 2014.
“Air National Guard found it in a field and through serial number
checks they found it was actually flown in combat in Vietnam,” noted
Lombardi. “Sherwin Williams donated the paint, the Department of
Transportation transported it up the highway and members of a local
paving company donated all of the time it took to set it up.”
As Veterans Day approaches, visit the memorial to pay tribute to all
those who served during the Vietnam War, especially the 1,562 New
Jersey men and one woman who did not return home.
~Additional reporting by Joshua Sigmund
‘Most of us are overachievers’
n BY NICK SWEDBERG
More than a decade passed between the time Neil Van Ess left the
Army and when he finally realized his childhood dream of becoming
a law enforcement officer.
It was a struggle from the moment he was discharged during the
Vietnam War, the 66-year-old retired Totowa Local 80 member admitted.
When Van Ess enlisted and joined the 101st Airborne in 1967, the
war in Vietnam was still popular with the American public, he
explained. But after only a year in the service, reality struck when he
was severely wounded in a firefight outside of the city of Phan Thiet.
Luckily, a “brave medic” and “brave helicopter crew” that he never
got the chance to thank pulled him out.
Van Ess spent months moving from field hospital to hospital, eventually enduring a 10-month stay at Walter Reed National Medical
Center. He was discharged in 1970 on 50-percent disability and left
when popular opinion of the war had sunk. After the war, Van Ess
tried to get into policing but ran into barriers.
“I didn’t tell anybody I had this disability because I always wanted
to be a cop,” he revealed.
It wasn’t only the disability at the time that was holding him back.
A psychiatrist labeled him “borderline,” which prevented him from
being accepted into a law enforcement job; Van Ess calls that blatant
discrimination.
“I was a Vietnam veteran and we weren’t treated very well in those
days,” he described.
After contacting a lawyer and preparing to sue, Van Ess eventually
landed a job with the Totowa Police Department. During his 30 years
on the beat, he headed the department’s detective division and rose
to the rank of captain. He has served on the NJ State PBA Veterans
38
NEW JERSEY COPS
n
NOVEMBER 2015
Neil V
Totowa an Ess
Army: Local 80
Vietna
m
Committee and is chairman of the
Gove