soldiers' home

One ex-soldier was dishonorably discharged from the Soldiers’ Home for running a gambling parlor just outside the gates.

When these men died, aged before their years, many were buried in the national cemetery to the east of the Soldiers’ Home, now divided from it by the 405 Freeway.

And so the Disabled Soldiers’ Home arose on the land, with a rich water supply and a $100,000 gift from the land donors that made the place into a vast, ornamentally gardened neighborhood of splendid trees set along artistically meandering paths, and the less flashy greenery of vegetable and fruit gardens.

Four years later, thoughtfully but perhaps unhelpfully, a federal judge decreed that 28 bottles of champagne seized from a drugstore not far from the Soldiers’ Home be donated to the old fellows.

“The facts are indisputable. I think this is a great start to end veteran homelessness and get this property back to its original intended use as a soldiers’ home.”