Emotional Work for a Good Cause

Since our May 1st arrival in Tucson, we have totally focused on things we can do to make a difference for TOP (Tours of Peace) Vietnam Veterans and their many programs.

Top on the list was to find a new office so Jess, the president of this small non-profit corporation, would no longer have an 80 mile (round trip) a day commute to the office. He works a lot at home as well but needs to tend to business in the office at least 4 days a week and with the current gas prices we could no longer keep the current office on the far Northwest side of Tucson.

The first day when we drove down the freeway and prepared to take our turnoff to our favorite deluxe RV park (Voyager RV Resort), I spotted a sign across the highway saying "Office Space" and thought "Could it really be this easy???" I drove over there to check it out and found that the building used to be the world headquarters for a very large gas and oil corporation. It is a huge building with long corridors and numerous offices. The brothers who have purchased it are gradually renovating it and renting it out. They usually require a rental space of 1,000 sq ft minimum but when I went to visit them I told them of all the good works of TOP and they were convinced to bend the rules even to the extent of giving them 320 sq ft for the same price as 200 would have been. The fact that they had a brother (now deceased) who was a Vietnam Veteran did not hurt any. WOW, day one and I had the top item on my "to do list" done...and we had yet to have our meeting with Jess to take over the operation of the office and our projects for the coming month here.

On Tuesday when we met with Jess, we were presented with the second item on our "to do" list. It was a very innocent looking shoe box that was very heavy. Inside was the precious treasures that the TOP participants brought back from Vietnam in March. It took my breath away when I gazed upon 367 dog tags strung on a heavy string snaking through the center of the box. These tags had been "rescued" from the street vendors in Vietnam rather than have them sold as tourist trinkets. It is our mission to inventory and sort through these, and then place them each safely in a small coin envelope, labeled with the name and identification numbers of each veteran.

We were not totally prepared for the range of emotions that came over us as we handled these mementos of lives injured and in many cases lost. TOP tries to preserve the condition of the tags as we found them. They are cleaned only to the point of making them as readable as possible. Therefore most are caked with mud, clay and yes, blood. So sad, so sad and then thoughts again of all those families out there...affected forever by the events of war and their sacrifice.

So we took over the entire process of double checking the data and facts from each tag to our newly established data base for them. Very tedious work but yet so rewarding when we finally find the families and reunite them with their veteran's tag.

There were already 1100 tags in the TOP inventory and we ended up working with them all (nearly 1500 in all) to place them into the new coin envelope filing system and safely into small trays for ease of handling and reference when the phone calls come in.

Today as we worked I was particularly struck by a couple tags that had bullet holes in them...my research will later show if the veteran died or survived his wounds but nonetheless it was very moving and an emotional experience.

Tomorrow I will start fielding calls from family members that I have sent inquiry letters to. We work hard to assure that we have found the correct family and respectfully returned the tag to the proper family member. The calls I took last week demonstrated to me the way each family had a different story but the same need to share it...to finally rehash the facts and try to find some closure with the new discovery of these personal effects.

Recently I have been quite involved in giving moral support and guidance to Vietnam Veteran's wives seeking disability ratings for their husbands. I am very careful not to tell them what to do or actually do it for them but rather to share my own experiences in that area and the valuable resources I was able to discover online.

I have found such a new range of purpose in my life with this Vietnam Veteran related work and feel so fortunate to be able to do it. Life is good in my little corner of the world!

Linda