HACKENSACK, N.J. - They awake each day at dawn, rising from wooden benches, emerging from behind bushes, crawling out of alleyways and stairwells like creatures in a bad horror movie.
But this is no cheap science-fiction thriller. The shadowy figures are homeless veterans stirring from the "spots" they call home.
Though their nicknames - "Mountain Man," "Spinner," "The Colonel" - suggest men of independence and derring-do, the reality is anything but romantic.
Stashing their meager belongings in blankets, gym bags, or underneath scraps of cardboard, they move out in all manner of dress: wrinkled windbreakers, worn-out baseball caps, dirty dungarees and sneakers.
While hundreds of civilians converge on office buildings and shops, this craggy-faced force marches in the opposite direction, away from the big buildings. At dusk, the migration resumes, in reverse.
"They don't want to be caught sleeping in hallways and businesses," said Jerry, 51, a homeless Vietnam veteran in Hackensack.
Jerry is one of 250,000 veterans - half of them Vietnam vets - who'll be living on the streets on any given night across America. In military terms, that's the equivalent of 17 infantry divisions.
'I hate it'
"Some like the life, the freedom," said Jerry. "I hate it."
In New Jersey, 8,300 veterans - up from an estimated 7,000 in 2001 - are living on the street, said John Kuhn, chief of homeless services at the VA hospital's Lyons campus in Bernards Township. He attributed the increase to the economy, and the high cost of living in New Jersey.
Help is on the way, say Washington officials.
President Bush has signed the Homeless Veterans Comprehensive Act - the largest assault ever on the plight of America's homeless veterans. It authorizes nearly $1 billion for programs to aid homeless veterans over the next five years, covering everything from job training to dental care, from substance abuse programs to housing.
A congressional oversight committee began hearings on the implementation of the act earlier this month, asking Veterans Administration officials how they plan to make it work.
The goal is to end chronic homelessness among veterans within 10 years, said Rep. Christopher H. Smith, a New Jersey Republican and chairman of the House Veterans Affairs Committee and the bill's prime sponsor.
Jerry, the skeptic, isn't sold on the battle plan.
"Do the math," he said, referring to the hundreds of agencies that will be competing for grants. By the time the money filters down to local agencies, there might be enough left to "buy some McDonald's funny money and a couple of bus passes," Jerry said sarcastically.
He was referring to the $5 McDonald's gift certificates that a lot of homeless veterans use to buy food. Paul Bleland, director of the Bergen County Division of Veterans Services, calls the gift certificates "morale boosters."
Looking back
Jerry's biggest morale boost came in 1971, the day he got out of Vietnam. His mood changed in the United States. Some people were still sore about the war. He remembers being spit on as he walked through an airport in uniform. "I asked for my luggage, took my uniform off, and threw it in the garbage," he said. "I flew home from Chicago quite drunk."
His next 25 years seemed productive enough. He spent a month in the Vermont wilderness to "decompress." Back in Bergen County, he amassed a business resume as a company personnel trainer, purchasing manager, and designer of inventory systems. Not bad, he said, for a man with a G.E.D. and community college courses. One item he didn't include in his resume: alcoholic. He ignored co-workers' questions about 'Nam: "Did you kill anybody?"
He was earning a salary in the high five figures when he was downsized out of a job. His marriage went bad. His savings ran out.
He lived for several months at a local homeless shelter, where the food was as salty as the language, then moved out onto the street.
"I got tired of sleeping in a room with 25 other men and women, listening to the same problems day in, day out," said Jerry. "I felt it was better staying out there."
Using survival skills
Survival skills honed on reconnaissance missions in Cambodia came in handy in his search for a home. He avoided areas with cigarette butts, beer cans, or trampled grass - sure signs that another human had been there.
"I tended to spend most of my time alone," he said. "It's much safer that way. There's no protection in numbers. The very people who you think will protect you are some of the ones who will rob your shoes."
His first "home" was a gully on the banks of the Hackensack River, behind a shopping center on South River Street. He cased the spot so thoroughly, he knew when the police came by, knew which stores stayed open late. The roof of his house was a piece of cardboard, camouflaged by twigs and leaves. As a buffer against cold weather, he wrapped garbage bags around his legs.
"For three months, I got away with it," said Jerry. "The cops never found me. The only ones who found me were the raccoons."
Battling the elements was easy. Depression proved a tougher foe.
"I cried for a number of reasons: the isolation, the loneliness. That ate me up alive, not talking to people," he said. "The few people I started talking to were so off the wall."
Finding new clothes was no problem. There was always the Salvation Army clothes bin.
"Is it legal? Of course not," he said.
'Overpowering anger'
Alone at night, there were feelings of "overpowering anger," the sense that "everyone's out to get you," said Jerry. "This is the time of night you run a movie of your life. A lot of veterans do a lot of reflecting. If you're honest with yourself, you'll admit a lot of the problems you brought on yourself."
Jerry discovered that life on the street was as regimented as military life - if you wanted to survive.
"Part of survival is knowing when you can eat," he said. Dawn was escape and evasion time: pack up belongings - or hide them - and leave before the civilians arrived for work. Next stop, the bus station restrooms for a change of clothes, washing, and brushing teeth. Then breakfast at the local shelter. At noon, lunch at the shelter. From noon to 4 p.m., the library was convenient for rest and relaxation. To catch up on sleep, a park or an abandoned vehicle. Then back to the library to hang out until it was safe to return to your spot.
Survival also meant adhering to the street's code of conduct: "Don't rat on other people, keep to yourself, and keep out of other people's business."
Jerry's current spot is a wooden bench in downtown Hackensack. But he has found an unofficial home of sorts, as a volunteer at Faith Foundation on State Street, a nonprofit group that helps the homeless. For many veterans, the foundation is a last resort. "We don't give anybody the bum's rush. We don't say, 'Get out!' " said Robin Reilly, the foundation director.
Her goal is to get homeless veterans "out of the city of Hackensack."
"It's important that people don't return to the place where they got drunk, got high," she said.
The Veterans Administration isn't much use, Jerry said, because the VA operates from 9 a.m. to 5 p.m.
"Most homeless veterans need help after 5 o'clock," said Jerry. "If I called up the VA right now and told them, 'I have 100 homeless veterans for you,' I wouldn't be surprised if the phone was disconnected."
Living on the street isn't on anyone's things-to-do list. No one expects it. A homeless veteran named George explained his own sense of surprise.
"I always thought, because I was white and middle class, this couldn't happen to me," said George, who is 46. "But it can happen to anyone."
George became homeless after fighting with relatives. For months he had a "spot" beside some railroad tracks. Then another in the marsh along the Hackensack River.
"It can happen to anyone," George said.
He said he saw no point in seeking help from the VA.
"If you don't have a drinking, drug, or psyche problem, there's nothing for you," he said.
In June, with help from the Faith Foundation, George found a studio apartment in Hackensack. In return, he does odd jobs at the foundation.
Harry, another homeless veteran in Hackensack, has a daughter who lives with her husband in Atlantic City. He could go there, he said, but he doesn't want to impose.
"I don't want to move in on their life. That's not for me. They have their own life," he said.
Harry explained that he once worked for the Postal Service. He left when his facility was computerized, he said. He couldn't handle the transition. He still checks the help-wanted ads for mailroom jobs, but hasn't seen any lately.
'No one's prepared'
Jerry, at the Faith Foundation, now helps other homeless veterans with resumes and VA paperwork. Some newly homeless veterans are nearly comatose, he said. They once had family, friends, and property. Their lives have been reduced to a tote bag.
"No one's prepared for that," said Jerry. "The shock alone sends people into a tailspin. Some are depressed to the point where they can't put a coherent sentence together. Most of these people have been rejected by their families."
Many studies show that homeless veterans suffer disproportionately from alcohol, drug and mental health problems.
"More than 75 percent of them have experienced such problems during the 30 days preceding their stay in homeless shelters, and 93 percent at some point in their lives," said Smith, the congressman.
"It's a very hard population to deal with," said Bob Corsa, the veterans advocate for Passaic County. "Substance abuse is involved. Post traumatic stress disorder is involved. There are guys that have just dropped out of society. They just don't want anything to do with it."
Some veterans say that trying to get help from the VA only compounds their problems.
'Trapped in red tape'
"You go to these agencies, you get trapped in red tape," said Jerry. "They drown you in paperwork, and keep on making you come back until you just get so sick and tired you give up."
VA officials are counting on the new legislation to resolve some of those problems.
"This is the best bill I've ever seen for homeless persons, period. It's a watershed," said Kuhn, of the VA hospital. Previous bills, he added, took a scatter-shot approach, with one bill targeting housing, another job training, still another substance abuse. "They were never tied together before," Kuhn said.
Not everyone is gung-ho.
"The potential is there," said Linda Boone, one of the nation's leading homeless veterans advocates. She is executive director of the Washington-based National Coalition for Homeless Veterans. She noted that the legislation authorizes substantial expenditures to help homeless vets, but does not appropriate the necessary funds.
"The same people who authorized it need to beat the crap out of the appropriators and say, 'We passed this. Now you have to follow through to make sure the money is there,'" said Boone.