I have been married for 58 years to a disabled Vietnam Marine veteran who is responsible for a wonderful service that has been going on since February of 1988 and has received very little recognition for it. 

My husband, Marshall Berman, is retired from the Georgia Department of Labor where he worked as a disabled veterans outreach person and now is retired and works with veterans 24/7 as a give back. 

He and several other vets saw a need to help veterans get to all the nearby VA facilities without costing them a penny. The round trip is about 225 miles but for many veterans the journey may well have been a million miles away until the Veteran Boosters came a reality. 

Many vets had no way to make the trip to any of the VA hospitals in Lake City and Gainesville, Fla., and then a few who managed public or private transportation were phased out with government cutbacks that would mean cessation of these trips for medical care.

Marshall was tired of seeing the vets sitting in the VA lobbies all day long waiting to be seen by a doctor and if they asked about how much longer would it be before they would be seen by a doctor all they would say, “shut up and sit down.”

So Marshall and his friends got their heads together and brainstormed and were able to get a school bus donated from the Grady County Board of Education that was no longer in service. 

They had the school bus repaired at no cost to the veterans. They even received a lift for a wheelchair. The bus was painted red, white and blue and they were ready to roll.

A $5,000 grant was obtained by the Georgia Governor’s Office for maintenance and upkeep for the bus. The American Legion, DAV, VFW and the Jewish War Veterans came on board.

Marshall Berman and the Veteran Boosters put on professional rodeos and womanless fashion shows to raise money for the bus. As long as a veteran has an honorable discharge and can behave himself, he can ride on the Veterans Express Bus at no cost to the government or the veteran.

The bus has been in existence since February of 1988. We have graduated to several vans now and they leave from Thomasville and Moultrie weekly and service five counties in South Georgia.

Marshall Berman needed to have a procedure last year in Gainesville at the VA Center and we were unable to get one of our sons to come down from Atlanta and he did not want me to have to drive down there and back. 

He didn’t know if he would be able to come home right away, so I suggested that we call about going on the bus since he was responsible for the bus being on the road today and see if it would be going to the Gainesville VA Center and they checked and called us back and said they would come by the house at 7:30 in the morning, pick us up and they would stay with us and bring us home at no cost to us.

It’s a wonderful service and we are both so proud of the Veterans Express Bus and I just wanted to brag a little and give my husband a little credit where credit is due. Thank you.

Mrs. Marshall (Bobbie) Berman, Thomasville