The Good Life – May-June 2024

LOCAL HERO | JIM DEREMO
"When you can change somebody's life doing this,
that's the payday." – Jim Deremo
the hand in another incident, which prevented him
from being able to return to the dental clinic he had
established just in time to get drafted. The VA denied
Jerry benefits because he was a dentist, which they
considered a safe role. Deremo changed their minds.
There’s Russ, who had three Purple Heart medals
and was diagnosed with MS. That led to a nursing
home stay and then a brain tumor that Deremo is
convinced resulted from Agent Orange exposure.
Deremo fought to reverse the VA’s decision to deny
nursing home care. After Russ died, Deremo worked
to ensure his widow and four minor children received
the benefits due to them, too.
"When you can change somebody's life doing this,
that's the payday."
But there’s also the Iraq War veteran who Deremo
received a call on and fought to get into inpatient
PTSD treatment. While there, however, he received
a weekend pass and took his life at a hotel.
And there’s Dan Olson, a two-time Iraq War veteran
who biked across North Dakota in 2010 and 2011 to
raise awareness of PTSD and in memory of losing
his friend and fellow veteran, Joe Biel, to suicide.
Deremo coordinated the trip with Olson to raise
money for veterans, and he followed Olson from one
end of the state to the other with the support vehicle
over the six-day ride. Olson disappeared in October
2021 and has never been found.
Despite the awards and gratitude Deremo has
received over the years – including from people he
doesn’t remember who have approached him and
thanked him for saving their lives – he carries the
weight of those he couldn’t save with him.
It’s not just war veterans that he’s fought for, either,
and it’s about more than securing benefits. It’s about
truly helping. A young soldier, one of the many
military sexual trauma victims, shared his story with
Deremo.
“I told him, if you have PTSD, you’re going to have to
deal with it, rather now or later, and it’s going to be
easier to deal with it now.”
Despite all the bad experiences Deremo witnessed,
he’s incredibly proud of his three daughters, two of
whom enlisted in the military, as well.
BRINGING THE FIGHT HOME
It’s not just his fellow Vietnam veterans who have
experienced the effects of Agent Orange. Deremo
himself has faced an array of health issues, including
being diagnosed in 2020 with non-Hodgkin’s
lymphoma, which the VA considers a “presumptive
disease” resulting from Agent Orange exposure.
34 | THE GOOD LIFE