Dewey Sizemore speaks about how he is in danger of losing his home to foreclosure. Sizemore receives a small pension but believes he is not being compensated properly for the time he served.ATHENS, Tenn. - Dewey Sizemore's basement is lined with the canvasses of his past.
Hundreds of oil paintings lean against cinder-block walls. Cardboard boxes are filled with dusty prints.
The art is varied. American Indians standing near twisting streams. Mountain landscapes. Cowboys on horseback.
This was how he made a living.
He never went to art school, but said he was the kind of guy who could learn by doing.
Sizemore made money selling paintings, running print shops and designing consumer product packaging -- like the bags that held supermarket bread, carrots and potatoes.
Before that, he served his country as both a clerk and an electrical worker. Jobs, play and military life took him to nearly 40 states.
Dewey Sizemore, an 89-year-old World War II veteran, stands on his front porch and speaks about how he is in danger of losing his Athens, Tenn., home to foreclosure. Sizemore receives a small pension but believes he is not being compensated properly for the time he served."I've had a good life," he said. "I've had a lot of experiences doing things people normally wouldn't have."
Now nearing his ninth decade, Sizemore is among a dying breed -- a living World War II veteran. But while many of his ilk are revered as heroes, Sizemore says he's had to fight to get the recognition -- and compensation -- he deserves. In the midst of battling to get his military pension restored, the 89-year-old says the Department of Veterans Affairs suggested that he get a job to repay $1,059 he owed after the government overpaid him.
And lately his troubles have only escalated.
His wife of 35 years died in the spring. Now, without her Social Security income, he faces the possible indignity of losing his house to foreclosure.
And he's convinced that his home of 19 years wouldn't be at risk at all if it weren't for the government's refusal to give him what he's due.
"They're hoping I'll die before they have to give me anything," he said. "The government is rotten."
Sizemore was born in 1925 and says he enlisted in the Navy at the age of 16 in his hometown of Jacksonville, Fla. He says he arrived in Pearl Harbor in 1942 and did electrical work on ships for about three years. He remembers leaving the Navy and marrying the first of three wives in Jacksonville in 1945.
But it wasn't long before he re-enlisted, this time in the Army Air Force, he said.
Altogether, Sizemore is convinced he served five or six years across the two branches.
But the military's records are dubious at best.
They show Sizemore's service in the Army, but don't recognize any time in the Navy. One document shows an enlistment date in 1946, after the end of the war, though it does show he served in the Hawaiian Department, a U.S. War Department outfit in the islands that was redesignated as U.S. Army, Pacific in 1947.
"It's rather confusing, I have to admit," said Larry McDaris, director of Bradley County Veterans Affairs, which has worked on Sizemore's benefits for several months.
Sizemore had been receiving his pension payment for years, but the VA stripped the benefit earlier this year after learning that his wife's Social Security benefits put his family over the income limit.
After he provided documentation of his wife's death, the VA reinstated Sizemore's pension payments because his single income was deemed low enough without her Social Security. To be eligible for that pension, veterans must serve at least one day in wartime service, McDaris said.
But even if the military were to recognize Sizemore's Pearl Harbor service, McDaris said it wouldn't change his pension payment. The monthly allotment -- $454 for Sizemore -- isn't based on years of service like a military retirement pension. Rather, it's for low-income veterans over age 65.
"They really just help the people that need it the most," McDaris said. "You can't make a whole lot and qualify for the pension."
McDaris admits it's a confusing situation with questionable record-keeping, but wonders if Sizemore's memory is accurate. The Department of Veterans Affairs has no documentation of service in the Navy, though one document references time working for a military contractor in Hawaii.
Sizemore is convinced the VA is holding out. He thinks it owes him hundreds of thousands of dollars for years of no payments.
"They have to pay me for Pearl Harbor," he said. "They have to."
So convinced was he that he took to a Cleveland Walmart parking lot week after week begging for people to sign his petition to help get his pension issues revolved.
Crystal Kimsey, a local chicken farmer, spotted him there under the summer sun. She tried to offer him money. He wouldn't take any, wouldn't even accept a Coke. All he wanted was signatures. He was there every time she took a trip to the store.
Kimsey had watched her father fight for military disability payments for 17 years before the government granted the request. She sees Sizemore's treatment as indicative of a larger problem of veteran mistreatment by the government.
"They're the ones that protect us," she said. "They're the ones that defend us."
She said Sizemore's predicament broke her heart. And she's been trying to draw attention to it since summer.
"He served this country for a number of years and now they want to take his living away," Kimsey said. "It's shameful and disgusting."
Sizemore also filed a lawsuit over the issue in U.S. District Court in Chattanooga without an attorney. The suit was dismissed in October.
With about $900 a month between Social Security and his pension, Sizemore says he can't keep up with his house note of about $700. He's now several months behind on his mortgage payments. His lender began the foreclosure process over the summer.
Sizemore has worked with U.S. Rep. Chuck Fleischmann's office in Athens, which put him in touch with Keep My Tennessee Home, a project of the Tennessee Housing Development Agency. Its website says the project is partially closed, and officials there did not return calls for comment. Sizemore says he isn't sure where he stands on the foreclosure.
And he's not the only person who is at risk.
His 31-year-old unemployed son, his daughter-in-law and their two young children live with him.
"If it wasn't for me, they wouldn't have a roof over their head," he said.
For now, Sizemore says he's just waiting -- on the lender, on the state and on the VA. And he's still fighting.
"You can't live forever," he said. "But I can try."
Contact staff writer Kevin Hardy at khardy@timesfreepress.com or 423-757-6249.