People wanting to help homeless veterans got a head start on the calendar Thursday.

The Veterans Day parade is scheduled for Saturday in downtown Denver. Veterans Day - Nov. 11 - is next Tuesday. But on Thursday, volunteers at the Colorado National Guard Armory wore buttons with this printed on them: "Every day is Veterans Day."

Representatives from more than 30 governmental, private and service organizations gathered at the armory for the 18th Homeless Veterans Stand Down.

Veterans ate a hot meal. Some received health screenings or flu shots. Others sat in barber chairs, getting free haircuts.

At one table filled with military- green duffel bags, a volunteer was talking to a homeless vet.

"I've got green, green and green," the volunteer said. "Green'll do it for you?"

The homeless veteran nodded yes, took a bag and walked outside, where other volunteers had sleeping bags to give away.

All the stuff - clothing, shoes and boots, offers of help to find housing or jobs or help with legal problems - was free to the veterans like Ellen Winans, a Navy veteran who said she has post- traumatic stress disorder and is on disability pension.

Winans, 48, was accompanied by Shelby, her service dog that wore a vest with a warning - "Please don't pet me. I'm working" - printed on it.

Didn't work.

"He helps me to go out in public," Winans said. "I tend to isolate."

Rebecca Sawyer Smith, a Department of Veteran Affairs spokeswoman, said 467 veterans came to the Stand Down, up from 417 last year. Stand down is a military term for troops being allowed to to rest "usually after a major battle," she said.

Winans and Shelby were navigating their way through tables inside the gym. They were seeking help, along with other homeless veterans, about housing and jobs. Volunteer medical professionals offered health screenings and flu shots.

Some came by van or bus from shelters or the VA hospital.

Winans got a ride to the Stand Down with a friend. Without friends, she would be in a real world of hurt.

"I live house to house - with friends," Winans said. "I get help from a church."

She is a native of Syracuse, N.Y., and joined the Navy to get away from a hard-luck life. It didn't help much.

She had a rough go while stationed in Puerto Rico. She said some civilians were protesting the use of a bombing range. So Navy officials locked down the base. Winans said she started smoking marijuana to soothe her nerves.

After she left the Navy, she came back stateside and hired on as a heavy equipment operator. Her drug usage got heavier as well.

She got popped for possession a little more than five years ago.

"It's hard to get a job with my record, even though I've been clean for five years," she said.

So she was seeking help from people who deal with others like her - vets with no place to live, no jobs, not much of a life.

She saw a woman in the gym who told her to see a guy in a white ballcap to make an appointment with a nonprofit agency. So Winans did.

But just because she's down on her luck, don't think Winans is hopeless or dour.

"I went to the dentist to get my teeth cleaned," she said. Then she popped out a front bridge. "He cleaned them so good they disappeared. You have to have a sense of humor."

massarog@RockyMountainNews.com or 303-954-5271

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