Author: Eric Saretsky

NCO Club Memories: Celebrating a Life of Service and Friendship

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Our neighborhood “NCO club” has ushered my comrade onto his next and final assignment. I am hoping that Valhalla receives him warmly. Sergeant John Norman, US Army veteran, 72 years old, died in the morning of October 19th at his home in El Cajon, California. He leaves behind his wife of 50 years, daughters and grandchildren, friends, golfing buddies and many members of his union retiree club. Though I neither golfed, nor was a truck driver, and our wives only knew one another generally, John and I could say we were as close as two veterans might be.

Origin of the NCO Club

We were neighbors for almost 24 years, and almost weekly over that time we shared several beers, sometimes good bourbon, and small talk. We would reminisce about our military experiences, family, and the state of the country and world. He enjoyed recalling his late mother-in-law, a female Marine, which always seemed odd in that her daughter, his wife, was quiet and reserved whenever I met him for a drink in his garage – our clubhouse. He could remember names of those he went to basic training while I struggle, though our similar experiences were only separated by five years. One story, he particularly enjoyed retelling, concerned a recruit who had money stolen, and the drill sergeant giving the offender time to place the money at night in an office drawer. Apparently, the guilty party did not return the stolen goods; the company then threw the thief a “blanket party”. Team reunified, justice dispensed, and funds recovered.

He served during the later years of the Vietnam War, in a medical compound next to the Korean Demilitarized Zone (DMZ). The stories he recalled treating soldiers’ indiscretions – drunkenness and for things that penicillin cured, never got old. As a truck driver delivering to military installations in San Diego, he would often tell a story of a delivery when a Navy supply sailor would not receive his shipment because he was playing games on a computer. Returning to the freight company, and behind schedule, a senior officer called John’s company to ask why needed equipment was not delivered. The story apparently did not paint the lazy sailor in a good light. As John told it, that officer subsequently reassigned the individual to the point farthest away from his home in the south of San Diego County, to Camp Pendleton 50 miles away. And one of the stories that I particularly recall had to do with his long-unused medical training. Though John never continued working in healthcare after his Army service, like some former Army medics and Navy Corpsmen I knew, I believe a cabinet installer owes his present use of fingers to John’s quick thinking. Some eight or ten years ago, in a brief lack of focus, the man installing cabinets for John’s kitchen strayed too close to his table saw. John packed the wounds and bundled the amputated fingers in ice, and got him to the ER.

Roses are not only red

We all benefitted from Sergeant Norman’s many talents. His passion was growing roses and he was a dedicated member of the San Diego Rose Society. He would show me many different varieties he tended, recognizing all by name. For several years, he would help me tend to roses I had grown under his mentorship. This continued until I could no longer hide that I was absolutely horrible at keeping them alive. His prowess as a gardener, though compromised years ago by a war with gophers (still ongoing), was unmatched. For 2 decades, the neighbors in our little block were recipients of delicious oranges and grapefruit, squash, tomatoes and peppers, which he distributed over his wife’s protests all year long. When he brought these gifts to my wife, she would generally nod in my direction, and say I should go over to have a beer (or 3 or 4 or 5!) with him. These were the best times for the “NCO Club”. Each Christmas, we traded gifts – my wife’s peanut butter chocolates were exchanged with his homemade cheesecakes. Sometimes these individual cheesecakes, gifts to neighbors, family and friends, might include an additional gift as an incentive for a little NCO Club time – a Bloody Mary he concocted for my wife. (I am allergic to spicy peppers but that’s another story.) Though we had conflicting New Years Day festivities, he would always subsequently invite us to enjoy a lavish spread for a Superbowl party at his home.

His talent thus extended to more than roses, vegetable gardening, golfing, or consuming Coors Light. Using skills I assume developed in his formative years of the 1960s and 70’s in carpentry, welding, plumbing and auto mechanics, he lent expertise to others. Those were great times to recall during our “NCO Club”. Though we served in different eras, and different branches of the military, we were able to see eye-to-eye on many issues. We routinely talked politics, gardening, social issues and married life. He was never concerned with spiritual things – rejecting me politely but brusquely or lecherously off-putting the infrequent door knocking parishioners of a local church. He knew I practiced my faith and would tease me to have a beer with him before going to my evening church meetings.

Neighborhood watch

In the early 2000’s, John would dutifully text or call to report at 10pm to his newly-married neighbor, “neighborhood watch: your garage door (or car door or trunk) is still open”. He kept an eye on things when my family traveled out of town. Over a quarter-century, we only had a few incidents that gave us reason to lock our doors at night and install security cameras. Before COVID, a lost, drunken sailor crashed into a neighbor’s home. On a street that boasted 3 veterans, a retired federal agent and a retired cop as longtime residents, thieves broke into my car and one night, sawed off the catalytic converter from John’s 1992 Ford F250. But John’s watchful eye kept wanderers out of the area. We often joked of protecting our street with sandbags and a 50 caliber gun emplacement. Instead, we had the watchful John Norman.

He used to encourage me after I retired as Navy reservist, that we would have more time to defend our homes once I retired from the job I commuted to for another eight years. Whether it was someone recently licensed speeding up the street, or learning that the long-parked car beside the overgrown pepper tree at the boundary of his front yard belonged to my middle son, things did not escape him. Through and after COVID, we never needed to defend ourselves from the Zombie Apocalypse but with age came more challenges to health. We all endured small bouts of COVID, and survived. We attributed our longevity to all the exposure we had in the service – everything from malaria pills and flu vaccines to anthrax shots and chemicals we worked around. As other neighbors and I joined him in retirement, while I and others endure age-related heath problems, John was the enigma. He worked in his yard constantly, tending to dozens of roses, vegetables and harvesting fruit from lemon, lime and grapefruit trees. He volunteered every year at the county Fair Rose garden. Every Thursday, he was part of a foursome playing golf all over the county. He liked his beer and Crown Royal. He boasted but for his neck and his waistline and overall health defied doctors expectations. When his wife’s medication no longer let her eat grapefruit, the harvest would be distributed to me. Then I went on the same medication. For the last ten years, John changed his eating habits to cooking mostly vegetarian meals to support his wife’s health. I assume those habits kept him going right until Sunday morning.

I shall miss you my friend. Until we all meet in that next realm, rest easy. We will stand the watch.

Treasure Hunting: Memories Behind Every Item

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One of our family’s traditions every January (besides my spouse searching for, and acquiring outdoor Christmas decorations at a discount) is taking several boxes of used clothing, housewares, exercise equipment, and knickknacks to Goodwill or other donation center. The only things I do not part with are contained in 3 black and yellow tubs stacked in the garage. Some of these I acquired during several moves around the country as a child and then later, during 30 years of a Navy career.

Everyone has a sea story to tell

Often, I bring back interesting stories when talking with volunteers at the donation center. This week, I chatted with a guy who had been ‘mentored’ by Frank Zappa in his youth while a musician in a recording studio. “It is so amazing that records (we called them LPs) have outlasted cassettes and CDs. I still have several thousand albums in my collection.” Working at the Goodwill, the option to find unusual items related to his history is probably a perk.

Reading a story online about the making of the second “Top Gun” movie, it remarked about the original movie’s technical advisor Pete “Viper” Pettigrew, an original Top Gun instructor. I was fortunate to meet him several years ago aboard the Midway museum in San Diego. “You should consider being a docent here, Chief”, he told me. ” You can tell (the same) sea stories to visitors every day.” While my wife has heard or lived many of my stories, I have yet to tell them to our adult children and grandchildren. Still, when our eldest son spent four years in the Army, he would call home to talk Army jargon to his mom; she would hand the phone to me and we would converse using the “army-navy jargon” translator all veterans know instinctively.

As I go through my collected mementos, decades-old memories come back vividly. And it is for this reason, I have a difficult time parting with even ticket stubs. (I still have, somewhere, ticket stubs from the 1980 Los Angeles Pink Floyd “Wall” concert.)

One man’s trash is another’s treasure

Every January, as I toss out old appliances, irrelevant papers and tools from work my wife and I no longer have need, and things neither of us remember buying, I take some time to look through my “memorabilia”. When I rotate through the bric-a-brac, displayed in a cabinet by my writing desk, I remember the places and people I met when I acquired them. Unfortunately, some break into pieces while using them over the years (mugs and glassware from my travels); some have gotten lost (letters I wrote my late mother during various deployments), and the rest I rediscover in random corners around the house. Other items I know to be fragile antiques, but “heirloom” is a far-fetched label for a fragile Bentwood rocking chair, old monogrammed silverware, military badges, Egyptian papyrus, or Irish wool blankets.

The Bentwood rocker, a butter churn, iron tools, glass medicinal bottles and scraps of a charcoal drawing have come to me after my mother passed. Some fifty years ago, when my parents divorced, I was moved from California to Cape Cod, Massachusetts. The home my mother bought together was originally built in 1745, and later became the studio for a famous muralist of the late 19th Century, Edwin H Blashfield. Predating Indiana Jones by ten years, I became an amateur archaeologist, uncovering odd items buried in the soil under a centuries-old barn. When we moved yet again, after my Sophomore year of high school, to Arizona, I convinced my mother to moved a 1930’s era Zenith radio with us. While it worked for a time on the Cape, finding vacuum tubes became difficult. I did not know then how to repair electronics or rewind coils. That was one of the influences that lead me to a Navy career in electronics after high school. Unfortunately, long before my mother passed, the radio innards and the cabinet disappeared.

image of a similar model to what I once had

Heirlooms only have value if there are interesting stories attached to them. At the moment, our grandchildren are more focused building things with magnetic tiles, splattering paint on bits of cardboard, and enjoying snacks at Pop-pop’s house.

After a year sabbatical, I am committing this year to putting memories online, so my children and grandchildren can look at images and stories and if interested, keep a few items out of the January trips to the Goodwill store – or the trashcan. If you have not given up on an old Chief, I hope the readers of this blog will stay with me.

help, Mr. Peabody!

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In many television shows and movies during my childhood, the idea of using a time machine to travel backward was a solution to many problems and answered many questions. The cartoon “Peabody’s Improbable History” featured the adventures of a genius, Mr. Peabody, and his boy, Sherman. They travelled back in history to visit various people who, but for Mr. Peabody, might not have been immortalized for developing inventions or theories. Did Mr. Peabody visit Pythagoras? A true story about translating a Babylonian clay tablet, discovered a hundred years ago, indicates the “Pythagorean Theorem” and trigonometry were used fifteen hundred years earlier than the Greek we credit.

A movie and several television episodes of Star Trek featured time travel, but one (All Our Yesterdays), has Captain Kirk and crew investigate a planet whose population has vanished ahead of their star about to go nova. In the episode, a timekeeper sent everyone backward in time to live out their lives and avoid obliteration. In our history, myths of ancient civilizations like Atlantis or Homeric tales that proved later to be true, indicates history repeats itself. With nations today always on the verge of destroying one another, nuclear war is more real than our Sun going nova- at least for the next 4 billion years. However, we have just reached the milestone sending human-made inventions beyond our solar system’s limits (Voyager 1 and 2). An achievement a half-million years in the making.

Paleontology and genetic research suggest that modern homo sapiens might have out-competed homo Neanderthalis to inherit the world. In recent years, the discovered remnants of presupposed modern construction techniques nearly a half-million years old suggest we may repeat history over and over again. Discoveries of enormous cities reclaimed by the Amazonian jungles, Bronze Age religious sites drowned by the sea, and Roman roads and aqueducts demonstrate a modern knowledge of science (astronomy) and construction techniques. Perhaps, like the conquering Spanish conquistadors in the Americas, or the Near East Babylonians, Assyrians, Persians, Greeks and Ottomans, might humans repeatedly destroy libraries that housed knowledge it then takes millennia to relearn?

Mr. Peabody, we need you.

On the road

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My wife insists that a road trip I am currently enjoying would make an entertaining video. She was intimating that she should have put a camera in the vehicle, so our friends back home could enjoy colorful jabs we were bound to make during the ride. We have made these at each other’s expense for decades. When I first suggested riding along with Russ, I protested to him and my spouse at game night, “It is not that I want to go so much, as I want to make sure Russ crosses the state line and keeps going.”

“Your wife will enjoy a peaceful week without you around. I’m the giver here,” He retorted.

He and I, two retired Navy Chief Petty Officers, drove fifteen hundred miles together from San Diego to Norman, Oklahoma in April. This would be both my first time RV’ing and first time making a road trip with Russ. I had asked to accompany him back in February, and he had quickly agreed. Together with our wives, we had been close friends for two decades, serving together in our community church, enjoying shows, concerts and other events together. From our earliest days, he would greet me Sundays, “Hey Old Man” and I would retort, “Respect your elders!”. We were exactly six days apart in age. “But you are, and will always be older”, he would say.

That I retired as a Senior Chief Petty Officer, which in the military paygrade was E-8, and he a Chief, or E-7, was always a running source of amusement. “That is exactly what I would expect from an Even Number.” I would generally follow up with something about him being odd. For the last several years, we would only pause our characteristic jabs during church or our small bible group meeting each week. After his wife passed, his neighbors, my wife and I spent Friday evenings playing Mexican Train. (It also could have been an excuse to drink margaritas but we never made excuses.)

Fast forward to this year. With his house sold and a new one under construction in Oklahoma, we were on the road moving him back to his Oklahoma roots, daughter and grandchildren.  Our first stop was to visit his friend during a stopover in Las Vegas. Where many would think casinos, we instead visited the Pin Ball Museum together.

The pinball museum has hundreds of operational machines – and many that need repair. This was sort of a pleasant memory for Russ as he had repaired many of those 1960 -1980s era machines before his Navy career. Playing several games, Russ casually reminded me that I might be dropped off somewhere in Nevada, if I continued to win as handily.

In Las Vegas, it always takes an edge to get into exclusive places. Any good Navy Chief knows how to get things done, in uniform or in retirement. And so we had an “in” to get a table for a great dinner at Top of the World Restaurant at the Strat. (Of course, now that my wife knows, I will have to go the traditional route to make reservations for our next anniversary,) We also had tickets to the Cirque de Soleil Michael Jackson tribute show, One. And now, that my wife also knows this, I will have to scramble to get two tickets for this phenomenal show as well.

The next day we got out of Las Vegas a little later than planned. I had to walk our other passenger on this road trip first. Our other passenger, Karma, is Russ’ dog, the sweetest roly-poly pittie dogs any . Oh, and we had a little electrical problem that needed attention. Though we had made an art of good-natured ribbing each other at every opportunity, we barely traded a barb, “You doddering old man. Can I get your walker?”

Instead, the twenty-something hours of driving across three states was spent with the fictional adventures of Mike Rabb, a former CIA special operator, as he tracked down megalomaniacs and world-destabilizing villains. These audio books kept us focused while we drove through Arizona, New Mexico, Texas and then into the Sooner state.

We arrived in Norman in time to catch a little nap, meet Russ’s family and catch a rare celestial event over this specific part of the country, a total solar eclipse across the central U.S.

So this week is a vacation and perhaps an opportunity to invest in some property. And catch up with a little sarcastic bombasts.

for amusement only

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Any discussion today about the future of society, in peace or in wartime, or the future of art and entertainment, or scientific discoveries seem to include Artificial Intelligence or AI. Yet just as the ancient Greek story of Prometheus, punished for eternity by giving the secret of fire to mortals, we mortals are hell-bent on discovering and distributing ever-more sophisticated means to curb our curiosity, intellect, creativity, and human interaction.

I read online that AI can now deliver various sorts of creative solutions, including drawings and even blog posts. I decided to make a simple test. These drawings were produced by a web application in response to test queries I made using Microsoft Copilot. For the first drawing, I gave Copilot a few parameters such as the blog name on a scroll and sea-god Poseidon. After being a bit more structured in my defining parameters, Copilot returned the latter drawing.

I do not think I will be amused if Copilot starts to independently publish posts on this blog based on my Internet history.

Remembrance

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Twenty-two years ago, we watched in horror when terrorists killed thousands, using airliners as weapons. I lost a former shipmate and mentor, CDR Dan Shanower, at the Pentagon that morning. As a Navy Reservist, several of my unit members were recalled to Active Duty that first month, beginning a campaign involving thousands of servicemembers -the Global War On Terror – that concluded twenty years later. What veterans look upon as “moral injury”, that the bloodshed over decades conclude in a wasted effort of politics and trillions of dollars spent, we must reassure ourselves. As veterans we did our duty honorably. Our fellow veterans -Americans, Allies, Afghan and Iraqi partners, Kurds, and others helped squash terrorism globally. All of us suffered loss. The lesson we all should learn is that conflict between differing politics, cultures and ideologies has always and will continue, to fester. Only unity creates a strong defense against hatred and tyranny.

Yesterday, September 10th, was national Suicide Awareness Day, and I volunteered to help the organizers of a Remembrance Walk in San Diego. Hundreds of people who have lost loved ones, colleagues, or friends come together annually to support one another, and to help spread awareness so that others will have tools and resources to help those contemplating suicide. There were groups and agencies present, informing us that aid is available to the suffering. As many know, the horrors of war, horrific accidents, murder, physical and mental abuse, addiction and apathy are conditions for veterans, family members, school children and First Responders to contemplate suicide. As many have learned, painfully, those who seem to be strongest under such conditions, are themselves suffering and in need of support. Only an engaged, educated and empathetic community creates a strong defense against self-harm.

Ed. A future post will publish various San Diego, as well as national, resources for veterans and others to obtain emotional and physical help, help prevent suicide, and to build community.

Leave No one Behind

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Reprinted, with permission, from Lt Col. (Ret) Scott Mann’s post on LinkedIn, 22 August 2023

In the fall of 2004, a handful of Green Berets volunteered to risk their lives and recover an Army Air Crew that had crashed their small aircraft in the Hindu Kush. Pushing the chopper to its altitude threshold envelope, they landed near the crash site well above 13,000 feet.

Sadly, the crew had succumbed to the elements and didn’t survive.

Storms started to roll in. The SF team stayed on station and battled severe altitude sickness. They extracted every single crew member and their personal effects so that they could be returned to their families for closure.

It mattered.

Our men and women warriors deserve to be remembered. Teach these stories of courage and sacrifice to those too young to remember. And teach them to every generation who come afterwards, that we are a people willing to help the vulnerable against the oppressor. -Editor

Lt. Col. (Ret) Scott Mann, U.S. Army Green Beret, served multiple tours in Afghanistan. Author, veterans advocate, keynote speaker, and leadership coach, has testified before Congress on behalf of our combat veterans, Afghan coalition partners and their families. Author of the play Last Out: Elegy of a Green Beret, is helping to heal the moral injury to thousands of veterans inflicted on them by 20 years of war and America’s ignominious withdrawal at the end of August, 2021.

sea stories and the Costco connection

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For a veteran’s spouse, a trip to get groceries may take a little longer than planned. It has become de rigueur for me on casual outings to wear one of my Navy veteran ballcap collection or t-shirts that recall a 25-year career. Several of my friends today are veterans; however, among millions of San Diego residents there are only a few with whom I share a specific place, time and mutual acquaintances where we served.

I added another last week.

During a shopping trip at Costco, when I excused myself passing a “Shipmate” wearing an “AD-19 Yosemite” ballcap, it started us swapping sea stories. He served at sea on that destroyer tender. I recalled a Machinery Repairman at the Transient barracks who was waiting on orders for that tender. Then we talked about bootcamp. A few years my senior, he was a Recruit Training Company Commander in San Diego at the time I went to Boot Camp here in 1977 and knew my “CC”. As we talked, I was reminded of several others I last talked with decades ago from those early years in my career. But this was the first time in more than forty years, I talked with someone from that period of my life, who knew the first Sailor who shaped my Navy career, Company 941Company Commander, ABE1 Robert Walsh.

Advocating for the homeless veteran

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Homelessness. The word itself conjures up all sorts of desperate images. Many who have not experienced homelessness are often one paycheck away (layoff or an economic recession) from such a fate. Some of these veterans whom I have encountered in the past, did not expect to be homeless, but due to marital issues, mental health challenges, the high cost of living, or addiction ended up in shelters or on the streets. Help, for those who want it, requires diligence and patience to navigate the bureaucracy. Finding an advocate to help is not easy, and often there are many seeking assistance who require a time-consuming process to provide needed services. For a volunteer not employed in the social services public sector, it means lots of research. Judging by the number of veteran outreach programs started by veterans, we take care of our own.

One such case I have been seeking to help has been “identity-less” for a very long time. In his words, he lost all his identification, military separation papers (DD-214), social security card, state identification, and personal papers, leaving him unable to easily re-engage into society. Twenty years later he reached out to me, finding my business card where he gets mail. In a close circle of friends, and the kindness of a homeless shelter, he was encouraged to take steps to recover. As a veteran, he was originally input in the VA medical system, and yet, without a government-issued document, he cannot prove that the record is his. To verify his identity, a military or VA identity card, social security card, utility bills, or a certified birth certificate are steps to obtaining a state identification card. He will need to have financial means to meet required payment of fees through check or money orders. Even though initially contacted to obtain a personal criminal background check – as a means to confirm his identity, the Department of Justice requires a government-furnish identity card (at minimum an social security card) to submit fingerprints.

As he was once married, even though his spouse has since deceased, he may request a certified copy of a marriage license from the state where it was performed, as a document to confirm identity. However, as he claims he is a native of California, regaining his identity can begin with an application, notarized, to request a certified birth certificate from the Department of Public Health. From there, he can apply at a Veterans Administration office or through a veteran service organization, to request his DD-214. With these government documents, he can request a replacement Social Security card through the local government office, and a state identity card.

Steps to identity recovery in California:

  • VS-113A Obtaining a certified marriage license, for a marriage performed in California (other states have their own processes) as a form of identification
  • VS-111. Obtaining a certified birth certificate . Submit notarized statement from a recognized family member See application, pg 5. Also, an authorized member of a government agency can request the registrant’s birth certificate.
  • If the requestor knows his or her Social Security Number, he may use the government website to request a replacement Social Security card online. Certified copies of other identity documents can be uploaded to the request. These have to bear an official stamp and not be photocopies nor a notarized one. If the SSN is unknown, a visit to a local Social Security office is necessary.
  • For a DD-214, the official Release from Active Duty, visiting a Veterans Administration office may be necessary, unless the former service member has taken the steps to enroll in milConnect. An advocate, or next of kin, may, with the veteran’s permission in writing, request the veteran’s military record or DD-214. Here are the instructions. Noted in the instructions, “Certain basic information needed to locate military service records, includes: the veteran’s complete name as used in service; service number; Social Security Number (if applicable); branch of service; dates of service; date and place of birth. For records affected by the 1973 Fire, additional information, such as place of discharge; last assigned unit; and place of entry into service may be useful.”

Ask the Chief: steps in getting your life back

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Privacy, in its purest sense, is impossible. All of us at one time or another require some good or service from the world. I once mocked a friend who declared he wanted to “drop off the radar” and therefore, not be surveilled by big business, targeted by advertising on the Internet, to cease getting spam mail and email, and not have “Big Brother” know his movements. Exactly, in this totally-connected, iPhone- and Amazon-connected generation, would anyone manage that? From my earliest years, and particularly once I joined the military, I was DNA-catalogued, fingerprinted, listed in voluminous credit bureau and bank records, and school files going back more than 40 years. In almost any setting, we exchange information that is tracked and personally-identified. Retail and ATM transactions, recordings on store surveillance cameras, hospital records, Netflix accounts, school IDs, drivers licenses, and social security numbers are just a few records we all know about. For the last twenty-five years, our daily lives have become an interwoven record of billions of data points, such that a native-born person’s identity is rarely questioned.

What happens when someone dropped out of the “mainstream” and has spent decades in the “fringe” of society? We have hundreds of thousands of homeless people in the United States, many of whom might want to live as many of us do, with jobs, safe conditions, and self-respect. What if you do not have anything that identifies you, as you? No photo identification, no credit card, bank statement, social security card, or birth certificate that can be readily produced. Assuming someone has not been incarcerated, what records can they produce – to get a job, a government id card, or SSN card? The homeless often suffer since many of their belongings may be lost or stolen, and family members may be unwilling to help.

Recently, I was asked about a service I provide, live scan fingerprinting, as to whether it would help get someone assistance in obtaining identification. The person on the other end of the call was reportedly a military veteran who had been homeless for twenty years. And at the urging of a family member, was seeking assistance to start moving his life back in the right direction. Namely, to obtain identification documents to help transition from a homeless shelter.

It begs the question, how does anyone begin to piece your life, in 2023, together? What little I know of government processes, indicate that someone has to show some government-furnished document – an identity card, drivers license, visa, or at minimum some bills that indicate your identity is recognized. In the absence of these, or to begin the process of obtaining identification, a person needs to request a copy of their birth certificate (which may be difficult without “proof” of identity). As a veteran, one’s military records or Veterans Administration medical files should be accessible, but these take some effort to obtain. Organizations that serve specific groups, such as Veteran Service Organizations (American Legion, VFW, DAV, and so forth), the VA, and local community resources may be able to help guide someone to regain identification. However, it often requires someone trustworthy and willing to help. And time and money, to petition agencies and courts, obtain certified records, and more than likely, a willingness to be an agent or advocate for the person seeking his or her “identity”.

I am motivated to help this veteran. As a veteran advocate I follow on social media, Lt Col Scott Mann states in the case of our veterans, “it is up to us”. I have asked the vet I spoke with today to keep my number tucked away. In the meantime, I will do some research to see whether the avenues I consider in this post will help guide this individual forward. If you have any experience in such things, I will welcome your feedback.