Internet helping to bring older veterans together

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Sometimes all a veteran needs is a little help from his friends.

That was the case with Ken Carlson, 76, of Mitchell, the longtime friend of Charlene and Steve Larson, of Mount Vernon.

A former crew chief and aircraft mechanic who served stateside during the Korean War era, Carlson recently used the Internet — with Charlene’s help — to find a long-lost Air Force buddy, Paul Ward, of Wichita, Kan.

Charlene, who works as an activities coordinator at the James Valley Community Center, said the opportunity to help out came from an offhand comment.

“We were talking about past wars and he began talking about a photo that showed him standing in front of a plane and how he hadn’t seen an old friend for many years,” Larson recalled. She asked Carlson if she could help him locate a lost friend.

So Larson fired up her computer and began searching.

Using her red Dell laptop, Charlene quickly located Ward’s address and phone number.

“He couldn’t believe it,” she said. “I e-mailed him and later on, the two of them talked on the phone.”

It was nearly 50 years since they last spoke together, she said. This Veterans Day, their friendship is rekindled.

Larry Person, field supervisor for the South Dakota Division of Veterans Affairs, said the state’s veterans regularly use the Internet to download forms, stay in touch and help manage medical and other care.

Person said the state’s mission doesn’t include helping veterans to stay in touch, but he doesn’t discount the importance of a strong support system. There’s very often a strong and powerful bond among those who served. “For some veterans, it’s very important,” he said.

The American Legion doesn’t have any facility for locating past service members, said American Legion State Adjutant Denny Brenden, of Watertown, but he knows vets use the Internet to stay in touch. The Legion is working to update its website, and to help vets in that regard, by creating a series of veteran Internet cafés, which veterans can use to post messages and collect information.

The connection that helped Carlson was made on the barest of information, he said, and he was amazed that Charlene Larson found his old buddy so quickly.

“She’s good on that computer, by golly,” he said. “She found the house and it had a circle around it and everything.”

The two old friends have spoken several times since then.

Ward, contacted by phone at his Wichita home, said he and Larson met at McConnell Air Force base around 1953, where they worked on B-47 bombers. The bomber was the Strategic Air Command’s major bomber deterrent until the B-52 took over in the 1960s.

Ward was discharged in 1957 but later re-enlisted and served in DaNang during the Vietnam War, where he worked on F4 Phantom fighter aircraft. He is now retired.

Carlson returned to South Dakota, where he operated a service station for a time and also farmed. Now on oxygen, Carlson said he remains plagued by lung damage that began when he breathed jet fuel vapors during those early years of his life.

He doesn’t own a computer, but he remains amazed at their possibilities. An old service buddy now living in Australia contacted him by phone several years ago.

“We must have talked for an hour, and I was afraid it would be a big long distance bill, but he said it would only cost a few dollars,” he said.

His buddy was using a VOIP or voice over Internet protocol. The system allows anyone, through services like Skype, to use their computer like a telephone, free or at a fraction of the cost of traditional long distance.

The World Wide Web is familiar technology for today’s younger veterans and new recruits, said Rick Barg, state adjutant for the Veterans of Foreign Wars.

“Today that’s how the military operates,” Barg said.

The VFW initially provided long distance telephone cards to help Americans soldiers stationed overseas to stay in touch with their families, recalled Barg.

“That was called Operation Upline, but it was expensive to use,” he said.

The rapidly emerging technology allowed the VFW to set up 800 lines so that soldiers in Iraq and Afghanistan could use the Internet to stay in touch.

“And you’d be surprised how many 85-year-olds are Internet savvy,” Barg said. “A lot of them have gotten Internet from family and grandkids.”

The Web has also helped to decrease mailing and other administrative costs for the VFW.

“Three years ago, I used to get 16 pieces of mail from national headquarters,” he said. “Today, I’m lucky to get five a week.” The rest is done by e-mail.

The VFW and other veterans organizations are only beginning to understand the ways the Internet can be used to help veterans, he said. Virtual veterans’ posts, where vets can hold meetings online, are just around the corner, he said.

“You’ve got to crawl before you walk, and walk before you run,” Barg said. “We’ll be running in four or five years.”

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