They also began a massive mail, fax, e-mail and door-to-door distribution of form letters and petitions.

In downtown Canandaigua, many V.A. workers handed out "V.A. dollars," specially printed pieces of paper they gave merchants along with cash purchases to illustrate how much the hospital contributes to the local economy.

Area merchants readily agreed to place copies of form letters and petitions in their shops, said Colleen Combs, president of the American Federation of Government Employees Local 3306, which represents more than 200 doctors, nurses and other professional members of the local V.A. staff.

"We printed up stacks of letters and petitions and handed them out in bunches to our employees, who passed them on to family members, neighbors and relatives around the country," Combs said.

Workers at other V.A. hospitals around the country also printed out copies of the letters and signed them.

"It brings tears to my eyes when I realize how this community has supported us," said Combs. "When we started out, I figured if maybe people sent the commission a couple or 300 letters that would be a feat - let alone over 100,000.

"Never in my wildest dreams could I have imagined support that we got from this community and surrounding communities and people all over the country. Nothing even close to this happened at any other V.A. in the country. People I talk to at the other hospitals are just amazed."

Political delegation

Veterans and community leaders also praise Schumer, Sen. Hillary Clinton, D-N.Y., and other elected officials who visited the hospital several times last fall to host "Save the V.A." rallies that on at least two occasions drew more than 1,000 supporters.

Schumer, Clinton, Reps. Louise Slaughter, D-Fairport, Amo Houghton, R-Corning, Tom Reynolds, R-Clarence, Sherwood Boehlert, R-New Hartford, and James Walsh, R-Syracuse, chairman of the powerful Armed Services Committee, visited the Canandaigua V.A. and met several times in recent months with Secretary of Veterans Affairs Anthony Principi, who also made a brief visit to the hospital in November.

"We got a great boost from all of our elected officials, Republican and Democrat alike, who came here to stand side-by-side with us and attract the media attention that kept the issue in front of people for months," said David Baker, director of the Canandaigua Chamber of Commerce and head of a local "We Care" coalition of area business and political leaders formed in opposition to the V.A. closure plan.

The hospital, with about 800 full- and part-time employees and a roster of more than 300 local vendors, is one of Ontario County's largest economic enterprises, contributing an estimated $30 million annually to the local economy, Baker said.

The hospital has about 240 beds for inpatients and, along with an outpatient clinic on Westfall Road in Rochester, provides care for about 16,000 veterans annually in the Rochester area.

Clinton said that V.A. administrators who advocated closing the hospital failed to understand its importance either to mentally ill veterans or the community.

The effort to save the hospital was supported across the board by business, community and political leaders because the plan to close the hospital "was wrong," Clinton said.

Citing a recent report that soldiers in Iraq are committing suicide at an alarming rate and that many will need care for the emotional trauma of severe physical injuries that would have been fatal in other wars, Clinton said that the Canandaigua V.A. - ranked No. 1 nationwide among V.A. facilities last year for its mental health programs - "is a hospital that many of the young men and women now defending this country are going to need after they come home. ... And the impact economically that would befall Canandaigua and surrounding communities if the hospital closed is something that wasn't even factored in."

Fabric of the community

"The reason that many people know where Canandaigua is is because of the V.A.," said Canandaigua Mayor Ellen Polimeni. "The V.A. is the very fabric of this community, and when they started talking about closing I knew there would be a great deal of interest because we have great numbers of veterans in our community.

"But the sustained interest is what's amazing to me. It's not something that's here and gone, but a subject that the community continues to talk about and write letters about. And you can't talk about what has happened without talking about Ralph Calabrese."

Calabrese, 74, an Ontario County native wounded in Korea, is widely regarded as the driving force behind Canandaigua's apparently successful effort to rescue the local V.A. from the government chopping block.

On a recent frigid morning, Calabrese shook the snow from his 2nd Infantry baseball cap and folded his coat across his arms before descending into the milelong tunnel that provides a covered walkway connecting each of the nearly two dozen hospital wards and buildings on the rambling V.A. grounds.

Calabrese said he began visiting the hospital several days a week as a volunteer shortly after retiring from his job as a construction foreman about 12 years ago.

He said he became alarmed over the years by the elimination of various medical and mental health programs and reduction of inpatient beds from about 1,000 to fewer than 250.

After talking with V.A. employees, hospitalized veterans and their families also concerned by the attrition of veterans' programs and services, Calabrese said he approached hospital officials and area political representatives about five years ago; they welcomed his plan to establish a community liaison committee to oversee local V.A. policies and programs.

Because a community-V.A. liaison committee already was in place and supported by federal political representatives when the closure plan was announced last summer, Calabrese said he was confident of gaining widespread community support.

"I didn't know the numbers to expect, but when I found out that so many letters had been written by people against shutting down our hospital, it didn't surprise," Calabrese said. "When this thing hit, the telephone calls were endless and every place I went, the first thing people said was, 'What can I do to help?' ...

The feeling I got on Aug. 6, when we had our first big rally at the V.A. auditorium, was of Americans saying, 'This is wrong. We can't let this happen to our veterans.' I get chills every time I think about it. This is what this country is all about, doing what is right and taking care of our veterans, no matter what kind of things they come up with in Washington and Albany.