Two Miracles
He'll be the first to tell you he wasn't entirely prepared for either one. Getting into West Point was a miracle. Getting out was another. But what happened in between — and in the decades since — shaped a man who now carries the flag for something far bigger than himself.
After earning his commission, he served 22 years in the U.S. Army: a first tour in Korea, then two tours in Vietnam commanding infantry rifle companies. He rose through the ranks not by claiming he was qualified, but by refusing to stop working.
"All I knew how to do is work, show up, work," he says. "I've never been qualified for any job I've ever had, including getting into college." It's said with a laugh, but there's a lesson underneath it — the kind of stubbornness that wins wars and, it turns out, fights disease.
A Chance Encounter at the VA
After retirement, Sonny settled in Charleston and found himself drawn back into the orbit of the VA. Then came the moment that changed everything.
He was waiting for a dental appointment when he noticed a table set up nearby. Some young women were recruiting volunteers for something — an Alzheimer's study.
"I didn't think I had any," he recalls. "But the one thing I'd learned with all the other medical things I'd been through is: if something's wrong, face up to it. Go and get it fixed, because you're not getting any younger."
He signed up. And that decision, made in a waiting room on an ordinary afternoon, put him at the front of something extraordinary.
Getting a Head Start
At the time, diagnosing Alzheimer's with certainty was nearly impossible — definitive confirmation required examining the brain after death. Clinical trials were working to change that, and Sonny became one of the early participants.
"Because of that clinical trial, I was one of the first people to start getting medicine for that — infusions," he says. "So I had a head start."
Today, Sonny describes himself as "relatively normal." He misplaces his iPhone. He occasionally forgets where he put his car keys. New names take a moment to stick. But he is here. He is sharp. And he credits it, in large part, to getting into a trial when the research was still young.
Carrying the Flag
Not everyone has responded the way Sonny did. He has friends who got a diagnosis and went quiet. Who decided they didn't want to know more. He understands the fear — and he rejects it on their behalf.
"Dude, you either got it or you don't got it. And if you do got it, you need to have something happening and you need the best latest thing you can get. And you can get that through the VA."
That directness — veteran-to-veteran, plain and unvarnished — is exactly why he keeps showing up. He has been in a handful of clinical trials now, some of which didn't pan out. But even those, he says, gave him something valuable: regular check-ins, vital monitoring, a team of people paying close attention.
"You get somebody you walk in and get your vitals checked, and if anything is going off course, they'll pick that up," he says. "I really think that it's opportunity all the way around."
Access That Otherwise Wouldn't Exist
Sonny is particularly emphatic about one thing: clinical trials give retired military personnel access to cutting-edge medicine they probably wouldn't otherwise have. Not through bureaucracy or luck, but through participation — through saying yes when someone sets up a table in a VA waiting room.
"There are a lot of people who would like to get into various trials," he says. "They just don't know how."
Sonny knows. And he keeps telling anyone who will listen.
