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Harold Russell  AP/WWP  When Harold Russell died on January 29, 2002, all of us lost an energetic and eloquent spokesperson and a dedicated advocate for addressing the challenge of disability. For Harold Russell, his role as a World War II veteran in The Best Years of Our Lives was more than a simple acting role. While working as a demolition instructor during the war, he was disabled, losing both of his hands as he demonstrated the use of hand grenades to a group of soldiers at Camp Mackall in North Carolina. He was fitted with steel hooks as prosthetic devices to replace his hands. The film provided a platform for the recognition of what it means to have a disability and the chance to demonstrate how a disabled person might rebuild his life. In The Best Years of Our Lives, Mr. Russell portrayed Homer Parrish, who returned home from service in World War II after losing both his hands. The film's depiction of the problems veterans faced on the home front as they dealt with their disabilities, brought eight Academy Awards, including an Oscar to Harold Russell for Best Supporting Actor in 1946. Harold Russell was presented with an additional award "for bringing hope and courage to disabled veterans through the medium of motion pictures." This was the only time that two Oscars were awarded to an actor for a single role. For much of his life, Harold Russell chose to work as a spokesperson about disability and as an advocate for veterans' organizations and for the employment of people with disabilities. He was very proud of his service on the President's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities, first as Vice Chairman in 1961 under President Kennedy, and then as Chairman appointed by President Johnson in 1964, and then re-appointed by Presidents Reagan, Nixon and Carter. Left to right: Bert Roberts Chairman of WorldCom shown with Harold Russell as he receives the Cristina Award in 1996 from Bruce McMahan, Chairman of National Cristina Foundation. One of Harold's important accomplishments was the role he played in the passage of the Rehabilitation Act of 1973, a critical achievement of the disability rights movement. This federal legislation dealt with discrimination against people with disabilities. Section 504 of the Act significantly prohibited programs receiving federal funds from discriminating against "otherwise qualified handicapped" individuals. This Act also created an Architectural and Transportation Barriers Compliance Board to enforce the Architectural Barriers Act of 1968. National Cristina Foundation was privileged to have Harold Russell serve as an NCF Board member for over 10 years. We worked closely with Harold through these years as he shared with us his wisdom, his wit and his energy for tackling issues to bring hope and courage to people with disabilities. He inspired the Board with his intense commitment to working on the fulfillment of his dream--that people with disabilities be productively employed. He regaled us with his marvelous sense of humor and cheered us with his bright spirit. Harold was an inspiration to all people who are faced with the challenge of disability and the need to make adjustments in their lives. He never forgot the advice once given him by Charlie McGonegal, a World War I veteran with no hands who helped him overcome his adjustment to wearing the hooks. McGonegal told him, "It's not what you've lost that is important. It's what you do with what you have left that counts." For Harold Russell, this message-to focus on one's abilities-was what it was all about. He shared it with others for the rest of his life. Cristina Connections remembers Harold Russell with some of the people whose lives he touched.

Rita, Jerry and Adele   meet Harold at airport.

I was a little girl, I guess, maybe seven years old when I found out he had a shop downstairs in our basement. He had all his tools, I mean saws, electric saws, hand saws. He made pool tables, bookcases, all kinds of things for the house. I really took him for granted. He was Dad. When we moved to Whelan (MA), he finished off the basement. He taught me how to drive a car. He taught me how to play pool. And all of this was just everyday life. I can remember him teaching me to drive. He was the world's worst driver. And he didn't get his license until later on in life.

I remember when he went for his driving test in Birmingham. The instructor said, "You're going to drive a car"? And he said, "Of course I'm to drive a car." He says "With those things?" Dad goes "Yeah". So he passed the test and on his license it read, "Must wear hooks while driving." He laughed about that. You know, he was just a regular person. He was "Dad."

What he taught me about disability

Adele Russell and her Dad

When we met some severely disabled people at the annual meetings I sometimes attended in Washington with him, he would point out to me about their accomplishments and their achievements. That's when I learned to understand what his work was all about. I started talking to people he worked with and began learning so much and then I actually got involved with the newsletter for industry that was run out of his office.

The Harold Russell Institute

We have gotten so many phone calls from people who say "You don't know me but I met your father at a particular occasion and he gave me so much help and inspiration. He helped turn my life around. I want to thank you as Harold's daughter." I never realized how much he had done for people. They talk about how he changed their lives in special ways and gave them the opportunity and motivation. That's what I would like to see continue, the inspiration he gave to so many people out there.

Adele Russell and her Dad

An example of a person he helped was a boy who had lost both his hands and had been very depressed. He had been an Easter Seals poster child. His father took him all the way to see my father when he was down the Cape many years ago. I was at the house and he told me, "I don't care about anything." He spent about an hour and a half with my father. In later years we heard from him. "I thought of a lot of the things Harold Russell said and because of that visit my whole life turned around," he told us. "I graduated from college and I've actually been able to make something out of myself. If it hadn't been for your father that wouldn't have happened."

Harold Russell's helping people accept his strong commitment to the idea that one should not be held back because of what one has lost but recognize instead the importance of "what you do with what's left that counts" is what I think I would like to continue through an annual award. This will be established by the Harold Russell Institute to honor what people can achieve. That was what my father was all about.

"I learned from Harold Russell that despite the fact that he did not have any hands, he never let his disability get in the way of doing everything that he wanted to do with his life. He told me to always remember, 'It isn't what you've lost but what you have left that counts.' Thanks, Mr. Russell for coming into my life. You were and still are my role model.

I look at the fact that though I am a person that has disabilities, I have differing abilities. For me that means I am a person who uses her unique range of abilities to develop fully in her own way."

I met Harold Russell when I dragooned him to become the commander of AM VETS the year after he made The Best Years of Our Lives. I was the AMVETS public relations director. We were casting about for somebody of some national prominence to become the commander and I thought of Russell. I'd never met him. I didn't know where he lived or anything but we searched around and to my astonishment I found that he was vacationing with his wife and baby about two miles away from my summer place in New Hampshire. A partner of mine drove over to visit him and told him about our idea and he thought it was a terrible idea and he didn't want to have any part of it.

Other veteran organizations at the time were mostly representing World War One Veterans and when we organized AMVETS we had dreams of having a big major veteran's organization composed mainly of World War Two veterans. As time passed, the American Legion and the Veterans of Foreign Wars began to take in the World War Two veterans also. They had much greater resources than we did. We finally prevailed on Harold to become the commander. He ran as an unopposed candidate and was of course elected overwhelmingly. He was so successful in that role that he served for three terms.

Harold Russell provided inspiration for handicapped veterans everywhere he went. I traveled a great deal with him in the early days. I'll give you an example from one of our visits. We went to a little town in West Virginia where a young man had lost both his hands in an electrical accident. A lineman, he was just devastated. The only business the town had was a broom factory. The Japanese had just entered the field of broom making and selling fine brooms for half of what it cost to make the U.S. domestic kind. So there were no real job opportunities. Harold went there and we got a hold of this young man and the principal of the high school and we had a big rally. The whole school turned out and half the town. As a consequence of that, a couple of new companies moved into town and this young man got a job, was on his way and afterwards became quite successful in his work. Many instances like that mounted up over the years.

The Best Years of Our Lives

The Best Years of Our Lives

By 1950, we organized the World Veteran's Federation. Harold was one of the founders of it in Paris. Thereafter, he devoted almost as much time to traveling to other parts of the world where he was a great inspiration to people. By this time he was very well known even in most out of the way places because of the movie, Best Years of Our Lives, which had had an international impact. It was played in all the countries of the world. It would usually precede him. If they heard he was coming to town, say a little town in Italy, they'd have the movie in a local theater before he arrived. So it was an important tool for him in showing people, as he often said, "It isn't what you've lost, but what you have left that counts". That was a slogan that he used everywhere and demonstrated to people how well it worked for him.

He made friends everywhere. He never had an unkind word for anybody and he was just a regular guy. He didn't see himself as some famous movie star or anything like that but he saw himself as a very lucky guy who by a stroke of luck and opportunity managed to do what he could and did well. He proved that if you have the will, that will overcome a disability.

I remember a time in Italy we stopped in a little town to have lunch. It was where St. Francis of Assisi had lived. The waiter took our luncheon order and then disappeared for a while. When he came back, he had the entire town council with him. About fifteen people came. They were so thrilled to think that Harold was there. They had seen the movie apparently by coincidence the previous week. The effect was just unbelievable. When we left after lunch, the car we had rented was loaded with oranges, apples and pineapples. They just showered the stuff on us. There were a lot of little things like this that by themselves did not amount to much, but -cumulatively they were enormous.

The Best Years of Our Lives

There were more than 300,000 GIs wounded in Viet Nam as I recall and of that number I guess half were seriously wounded and more than 25,000 were left with one or more appendages missing - that is an arm or a leg- that sort of thing. Harold began organizing pressure groups that actively promoted what they believed to be the rights of the handicapped-- education, employment, access. But their lobbying was complicated by the inadequacy of the Viet Nam GI Bill of Rights. Handicapped veterans had a limited future and a lot of them were bitter about it. Harold went to work about that much in the same way as the Civil Rights movement of the sixties. Out of his efforts he was instrumental in getting Congress to pass the Rehabilitation Act of 1973. They strengthened it again in '74. He did a model job as Chairman of the President's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities, because he just gave himself to that work one hundred percent.

I believe, as I remember Harold, that his influence on me was a big plus. I'm a former newspaperman who thought I knew all the answers in the beginning. Pretty tough, I softened up in the years as I began to come under his spell. He had a great sense of humor. We laughed our way around the world more than once I have to tell you.

My father had worked for Harold Russell and so as a young man growing up I met him, probably when I was twelve years old or fourteen whatever I was back then. He had just become Chairman of the President's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities. In 1971, after I got back from two tours in Viet Nam and service in the military and in the Navy, I came to work for the President's Committee on the Employment of People with Disabilities. I worked for him from 1971 to 1989, certainly all of his time as Chairman of the President's Committee. Harold Russell worked for 12 U. S. Secretaries of Labor in a row and five U. S. Presidents in a row.

What he brought to the Committee that was especially significant was the human dimension. That was his forte. That was his strength.

Harold Russell

Yes, he talked about disability but he showed you disability in a very human and personal and caring and loving way. Whether he would hand out his hook to shake your hand or play pool with you, and I played pool with him as a young man, you very quickly forgot about his disability. You didn't care that he had two hooks for hands and he didn't care either quite frankly. He was one of the most genuine human beings I've ever had the privilege to know. He was an honest, straightforward, caring person that everybody liked and admired.

Harold Russell provided the national stage that the platforms for the disability advocacy movement needed to first get started. Back before The Rehabilitation Act of 1973 was enacted there were a number of disability advocates such as Judy Heumann, Ed Roberts and Justin Garth who really didn't have a national stage. He provided them that national stage because he recognized they were the next generation of leaders. They were taking the next steps and building upon what he had built and the President's Committee's annual meetings gave them their first chances to express themselves and to begin, or organize to begin, setting priorities and issues.

I think one of the neatest stories about Harold, if I may, is when President Reagan came to town in 1980. There were, of course, the prior administration holdovers here, all the Democrats under President Carter. All of the Democratic presidential appointees--and Harold was one--were told to resign. Harold said, "Sure, I understand", and he handed in his letter of resignation. All of the letters were accepted except for one. The reason this one was not accepted was because when President Reagan became aware that Harold was among that group he said, "You're not firing him. I gave him his Oscar!" Whether you were a Democrat or Republican, Liberal or Conservative, whatever your point of view, Harold was able to reach you with an understanding and appreciation for what he represented. I think that was the power of his personality.

Members of Congress at the time were veterans of World War II. And he was the personification of the disabled veteran from that war. He had great notoriety on the Hill and he parlayed that access to bring the disability advocates into the Congress and help them make their contacts and establish their agendas.

Harold Russell in Washington DC.

Harold took the beach and then he established the bridgehead so that people could run across the bridge and get to the deeper issues and carry the fight forward. In the 50's and 60's, he was considered a comparable person to Helen Keller in terms of his impact. We don't understand that as well today because the older generation is out of power and retired. Many have passed away. He was very much an inspirational leader to the country in helping many people with disabilities see that they did not need to accept the status quo.

Harold Russell set the stage and enabled us to get into the details of disability. Into the transportation issues, into the access issues, into all of those issues that have to be resolved to get to equal access and full integration. But before you could even start talking about those things you had to change the national psyche about disability and that was what he did. It was that power of humanity that I spoke about earlier that made him the leader and the hero that he truly was.

His humility was probably one of the most fascinating things about him. If you met him in a meeting or a restaurant you would never know. He knew people in Hollywood that you'd just swoon over. When he went out to Hollywood, big stars would take him into their homes to stay or to take him to dinner. He was a celebrity in that world.

When you met him in a meeting, none of that. You would never imagine that any of that was part of his life. And that's because he cared about you when he met you. You could see that in his eyes. He connected with you. I don't know whether that's humility or it's confidence or it's power of personality or it's communication. To me that was the most impressive thing with all that he had in his life and all the recognition that he had earned. When he was with somebody, whether it was a disabled veteran at Walter Reed or me as a GS5, you felt connected and you felt connected right away. It was that power of humanity that made him the leader and the hero that he truly was.

I met Harold Russell as a result of my activities with the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans. I was the founder of that organization. The New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans was founded in 1988 as a result of a visit I had made to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington.

At that Memorial which honors the dead of Viet Nam and all Viet Nam veterans, we found dozens of veterans who were homeless who lived around there. We were stunned. When we came back to Boston, we visited all of the shelters of greater Boston and found hundreds of veterans living in the greater Boston area that were also homeless. That prompted us in 1988 to begin a project called the New England Shelter for Homeless Veterans. George Bush senior awarded a twelve-story building to us to house homeless veterans in downtown Boston. We have training workshops and housing facilities at that location. The program we operate has a staff of 150. There are 485 veterans who live in the building and another 300 who come for class training.

How did I meet Harold Russell? One day, a couple of years into the project, a veteran presented himself in a wheelchair. He was a double amputee. I was stunned. I didn't quite know how to help him and my research brought me to the President's Committee on People with Disabilities. I learned about Harold Russell and that he, too was a double amputee. I found out he lived on Cape Cod and so, unsolicited, I got in my car and drove from Boston down to Cape Cod. A couple of hours later I was knocking on Harold's door unannounced. He was very gracious and invited me in. I explained to him who I was. He knew about our project. I explained to him that I was stumped on how best to help this particular veteran. From his house in Cape Cod he called somebody he knew in the Veterans Administration. We had an appointment the next day in Boston. From that grew a friendship, an understanding, and a mentorship with Harold Russell that lasted for the past 12 years until his death.

Harold Russell the only actor awarded two Oscars  for a single role.

I think most Viet Nam veterans very quickly came to the conclusion that the only people that could help us were ourselves. There had been few social service programs established for Viet Nam veterans and so veterans worked to establish their own. I just happened to be so angry over the fact that so many of my brothers were homeless that I was able to channel that anger into a positive result. And a lot of that is due to the mentoring that I received from Harold Russell and others-but mostly from Harold.

I've been working with his daughter Adele and I have seen the vast amount of memorabilia and awards and honors that Harold has received in his lifetime above and beyond his Academy Award. Working with Adele, we agreed that we will take this collection of memorabilia, paperwork, letters, awards and presentations, catalogue it all, put it into display format and contribute these to Boston University where Harold was a graduate. I have just recently received approval to do this from the University's special collections division, the same division that has collected works from Martin Luther King and others.

Adele Russell and I are re-starting The Harold Russell Institute, its work - to speak on behalf of people with disabilities (not just veterans). It will give away an annual award called the Harold Russell Award. The Award will be presented here in Boston modeled after the Profiles in Courage Award that is also given away here in this city. It is our way of attempting to try and continue the work that Harold began and my way of remembering some of the many things that he taught me in my life.