Blinded veterans masters in valor

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When you look Roy Kekahuna in the eye, you see a man who has learned to adapt to the everyday challenges of life.

He’s so good at what he does that an observer with normal vision sitting across the table from him wouldn’t know he’s blind.

He has been that way since June 25, 1967, when he stepped on a booby trap in Vietnam. Like the improvised explosive devices in today’s war in Afghanistan, it triggered a 155-howitzer shell to explode as he led a team of the Army’s 5th Special Forces soldiers back to their base camp near Phu Bai.

He lost use of his left eye and left arm. He also suffered hearing loss. But with “the miracles of modern medicine,” he managed to regain limited vision — 20-800 — in his right eye. With this new “vision” and vision technology, he went on to earn doctorate degrees in sports psychology and business management.

“You learn to adapt and adjust,” he said during an interview last week at the Department of Veterans Affairs on Rancho Lane, where he is chief of voluntary service.

“The biggest thing I learned in the military is adaptability.”

That will be his message next week as national president of the Blinded Veterans Association when 600 of its 11,000 members gather at the Golden Nugget for their 66th annual convention.

VA Secretary Eric Shinseki will address the congressionally chartered group on Aug. 17, the second day of the convention. Exhibitors of the latest technology to help the blind will be on hand through Aug. 20 with 180 family and friends of the members and guest speakers.

It was through the VA’s blind rehabilitation programs that Kekahuna, 72, learned to use a special keyboard designed for his right hand.

Next to the keyboard is a television camera that magnifies fine print hundreds of times, so he can see large letters by wearing what he calls his “Coke bottle glasses.”

Kekahuna leads by example to teach others how to overcome their vision-impaired disabilities, fitting with the association’s motto: blinded veterans helping blinded veterans.

He is not alone.

There’s Chuck Conger, 80, a Korean War veteran who became blind later in life from an age-related condition called macular degeneration.

Before he became president of the Southern Nevada regional group of the Blinded Veterans Association, he learned “living skills,” things like operating microwaves, washers and dryers, and how to use a monocular to read menus at fast-food restaurants.

Although he is handicapped by numerous back surgeries, if he could walk a mile like many who are blind, he could go to one of 11 VA rehabilitation clinics to learn how to use a hand-held GPS device to get around town.

“You can do a lot of things you would normally do if you have devices,” he said.

And there’s Sandi Niccum, 76, a Cold War veteran whose blindness stems from diabetes that she developed during her fifth year on active duty as a Marine medic with the Navy Medical Corps in Paris Island, S.C.

She eventually lost her vision in one eye in 1983 and the other eye three years later but learned how to cope with blindness through rehabilitation programs in Hawaii and Tucson, Ariz.

She even learned how to bowl and drive golf balls at the range by getting a feel for the location of pins or a ball on the ground.

“You have to use your imagination to figure things out,” she said. “Your independence is what you survive on.”

Kekahuna has seen the association’s membership evolve from a large percentage of World War II veterans to a growing number of Vietnam War veterans who become blind from diabetic complications linked to exposure to Agent Orange and other dioxin-laden defoliants that were used in Vietnam.

The association has 11,000 members, but he estimates there are 4 million veterans in the United States whose blindness is connected to their service or non-service factors including diseases and injuries as civilians.

The biggest emerging group are veterans of the wars in Iraq and Afghanistan who suffer head injuries and traumatic brain injuries from IEDs.

“The optic nerve tends to be injured more,” he said. “These guys may not be blind right now but one day they wake up and run into walls.”

One upshot of the convention will be to target legislation to help the needs of such growing groups of blinded veterans.

Technologies need to focus on the whole spectrum of blind disabilities, he said.

“There are guys who come back who are blind and have no hands,” he said.

Besides the business aspect of the convention and guest speakers, several activities are planned at the convention, including a bowling tournament.

“There’s about 20 of us who will be jumping off the Stratosphere,” Kekahuna added, referring to a ride atop the tallest building in the Las Vegas Valley.

Contact reporter Keith Rogers at krogers@reviewjournal.com or 702-383-0308.