Roanoke Times
                 Copyright (c) 1995, Landmark Communications, Inc.

DATE: SATURDAY, June 2, 1990                   TAG: 9006020164
SECTION: VIRGINIA                    PAGE: A-4   EDITION: STATE 
SOURCE: By DOUGLAS PARDUE STAFF WRITER
DATELINE:                                 LENGTH: Medium

VETERANS DIRECTOR APPOINTED

O'Dell, 42, who has made a career fighting the U.S. Department of Veterans Affairs for improved benefits to veterans, was named to the Roanoke-based office on Thursday. He replaces Sam Black, who held the job since 1983.

"There are some who say I'm controversial. There are also some who say that means I've been an effective advocate for veterans," O'Dell said Friday.

The purpose of the Virginia Department of Veterans Affairs is to help Virginia's 669,000 veterans file claims and appeal claims for benefits from the federal department.

The U.S. department is not an adversary, he said. But it's a large, bureaucratic agency, and the individual needs and rights of veterans sometimes get buried in the paper work.

He said he considers himself "a staunch advocate for the rights of veterans." And, he said, he plans to make sure that the Virginia Department of Veterans Affairs continues its job of helping individual veterans and pushing for the rights and benefits of all the state's veterans. The department handles more than 15,000 claims and appeals a year.

O'Dell said one of his main tasks over the next couple of years is shepherding construction and operation of the $17 million State Veterans Home near the Veterans Affairs Medical Center in Salem. Construction is to begin in 1991 and should be completed in 1992. The building is to have 240 beds, 50 for live-in veterans and the rest for nursing care.

Laura Dillard, Wilder's press secretary, said the governor appointed O'Dell because he is an activist who has "worked toward the interests of all veterans."

She said O'Dell was an active participant and organizer in Wilder's campaign and wrote Wilder's position papers on veterans affairs.

O'Dell, a tank commander in Vietnam in 1968-69, worked with the Virginia Veterans Affairs office from 1981 to 1986. He then moved to Washington to work full-time with the Vietnam Veterans of America. He served as that organization's vice president. He ran for president but lost in 1989 and moved back to Virginia to work on Wilder's campaign and serve as a consultant to the Virginia Department of Veterans Affairs.

As an officer of Vietnam Veterans of America, O'Dell helped pressure the VA to set up clinics to treat post-traumatic stress syndrome. He also helped develop the payment plan for benefits from the $180 million Agent Orange lawsuit settlement.

He co-authored "The Viet Vet Survival Guide," a book designed to help veterans find their way through the bureaucratic maze of governmental benefit agencies.

In 1984, as a member of the board of directors of Vietnam Veterans of America, O'Dell and several other veterans went to Vietnam. The trip was opposed by the U.S. government and several other veterans' groups. But O'Dell said the visit was designed to research the effects of Agent Orange, to push for information on American servicemen classified as missing in action and to help resolve the issue of Amerasian children.

O'Dell said he and his team have been wrongly accused by some veterans' groups of having placed a wreath on the tomb of Ho Chi Minh, the late president of North Vietnam.

"I did not place a wreath on Ho Chi Minh's grave," he said.