FAMILIES STRUGGLE TO MAKE SENSE OF VA SHOOTING

SAN FERNANDO -- Philip Goins and Armando Ballesteros each returned from
Army service in the Vietnam War with heroin addictions.

And each shared the frustrations of long waits at the Sepulveda Veterans
Administration Medical Center where they were undergoing methadone treatment.

But a day before Veterans Day, Goins no longer could contain his
frustration and anger, tragically directing it at Ballesteros, a man who
police said he barely knew. Goins shot Ballesteros in front of the
methadone clinic and then killed himself.

Ballesteros' death came as he struggled to overcome addiction and put his
life back together. He was a churchgoing man, with a daughter, according to
family and friends.

Goins died as he surrendered to bitter memories of the war, frustration
with the Veterans Administration, and the pain and hopelessness of
addiction, according to police and witnesses.

For both families, the shootings made no sense.

A day after the shootings, a neighbor passed by the Ballesteroses' yard,
filled with about 20 grieving family members. He asked Armando Ballesteros
Sr., himself a veteran of World War II, what had happened.

"We don't know exactly," he said. "Here I was shot twice in the Army, and I
made it. Fifty-four years later, my son gets shot by a bullet, and he's not
in a war but at the VA hospital."

His brother, Freddie Ballesteros, said he understands how long waits at the
veteran's center can be frustrating.

"My brother has waited there for 10 hours. You could see how some of these
veterans would get crazy. My brother was getting discouraged with the
treatment," he said.

But it shouldn't have driven Goins to shoot someone, he said.

"Something more should have been done. I feel bad for his family. Not only
do they have a death, but he killed somebody else," he said.

Goins' mother also was in mourning. She said there is another side to her son.

"He had a stack of people who he helped," she said, without elaborating.
"He donated money to organizations and he sponsored a child in Tennessee."

She also told detectives that he felt like he was up against a wall when
talking to VA officials about his medical benefits.

"He was upset for a while about benefits from the VA that he had applied
for at the hospital," said Los Angeles police Detective Mel Heissel.
"Whether it was real or imagined, we haven't confirmed that."

What caused Goins to shoot Ballesteros remains unclear. The two were
acquainted but didn't have a problem with each other -- until that day.

Los Angeles police Detective Mike Oppelt said witnesses described the
gunman as "a time bomb waiting to go off."

Goins confronted Ballesteros and, despite attempts by at least one
bystander to intervene, he pulled out a handgun and fired about four shots
at Ballesteros, according to police and witnesses.

Goins then fled in his car, hitting another car and abandoning the vehicle
in the 10300 block of Haskell Avenue. With police in pursuit, Goins hid in
the laundry room of Jefferson Smith's house.

Smith, who didn't know Goins, tried to talk to the veteran.

"He turned around with a gun in his hand. He never pointed it at me -- and
with this wild look on his face he said, 'I came here to die,"' Smith
recalled.

Goins identified himself as a Vietnam veteran and said the VA had cut off
his monthly check.

"He was going on and on about the VA. They were just hassling him," Smith
said. A fidgety Goins told him that he wasn't going to see another
Veteran's Day.

"I tried to talk him out of it," Smith said. "Hey, man," he said he told
Goins, "there's no sense in this. It can't be that bad."

But it was that bad.

"He said he shot a drug addict is what he said. He didn't want to kill the
guy, but he was just pissing him off," Smith said.

"He asked me to call his mother. He wanted his brother to have his medals."

Then one officer with a shotgun approached Smith's yard.

"I said, they're here, and he shot himself," Smith said.

For Ballesteros' family, the shooting has left a huge hole in their lives.

"He was like a father to my kids when I wasn't there," said Ballesteros'
son-in-law, Luis Hernandez. He walked them to school every day, took them
to the park and helped them with their homework.

He lived with his mother, Antonia, 78, and his father, Armando Sr., 79, in
the 600 block of O'Melveny Avenue in San Fernando, where he was born and
raised.

He had stopped drinking alcohol for six months -- about as long as he had
been attending Sunday services at the Catholic church down the street,
family members said.

"He was getting his life back together," his brother said.

His family called him a quiet, gentle person who didn't talk much about his
war days.

"He was just glad to be home after the war," his brother said.

Ballesteros had a daughter and worked as a fabricator at Lockheed. Though
he stumbled at times with his drug and alcohol addictions, his family said
he constantly worked to better his life for his family, including the two
little passions in his life -- his grandchildren.

Ballesteros' mother and father said their son, nicknamed "Mandito," was not
the type to argue with others.

"He didn't bother anybody. I never had any problems with him," his father
said.