Research and Student Inquiries: Tips for finding a Veteran.

VSPA receives many requests to help locate a friend. I often rely on a good bud, Gene Kuentzler, who has outstanding skills at digging out hard to find details and locating information. Here's some tips Gene offers that worked for me and will work for you on how to get started finding your buddies today:

1. GET YOUR UNIT ROSTER: Write to the National Personnel Records Center, 9700 Page Ave, St. Louis, MO 63132.

Request a unit roster of "anytime" from your time in the unit.
Tell them the unit, and dates concerned: 2/17th Arty, 1965-66, Vietnam. Note: they don't like to help if you want to find guys for a reunion.
When you get the roster with names, the service # indicates what region of the USA he was from. (I'll list the codes at the end of this note.) Your unit roster from 65-66 will give correct spellings of names for finding your buddies and also to compare with the casualty names listed on The Wall.

2. BUDDY SEARCH: Use the search tools on the net such as Big Foot or Switchboard (some offer a select a "State" option). As you start finding guys, you better create a database file to keep a roster.

3. UNIT CASUALTIES: From names on your original unit roster, you'll also want to compare those names to those listed on The Wall. Two excellent sites for doing this are: No Quarter and The Wall USA.

4. UNIT INFO SEARCH: Check to see what info is on the net, (maybe) about your unit It's a tempermental page, you need to abbreviate the request, ENGR for Engineer, ARTY for Artillery, etcetera. Also, do a unit search on Google.

As you find more guys, you may want to create a Newsletter to keep those interested in touch, or even create Your Organization, and set up your first reunion. You can also keep in touch on VSPA's Bulletin Board in hope other friends will join in. From there on, your fun will just begin!

5. SERVICE # CODES: The USA was divided into 5 Army Districts, the first digits on the service number indicate what region of the USA your buddy was from. Then you'll know where to concentrate your focus (hoping he's still in that state). The Codes are:

US 51 : CT, DE, ME, MA, NH, NJ, NY, RI, VT
52 : IN, KY, MD, OH, PA, VA, WV
53 : AL, FL, MS, NC, SC, TN
54 : AR, IL, LA, NM, OK, TX, IN
55 : CO, IL, IA, KS, MI, MN, MO, NE, ND, SD, WI, WY
56 : AZ, CA, ID, GA, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA
50 : HI
50-1: PR, PANAMA
50-2: AK

RA 11 : CT, ME, MA, NH, PA, RI, VT
12 : DE, NJ, NY
13 : MD, PA, VA
14 : AL, FL, GA, MS, NC, SC, TN
15 : IN, KY, OH, WV
16 : IL, MI, WI
17 : CO, IA, KS, MN, MO, NE, ND, SD, WY
18 : AR, LA, NM, OK, TX
19 : AK, AZ, CA, ID, MT, NV, OR, UT, WA
10-1: HI
10-2: PANAMA
10-4: PR

Good Luck!
Gene Kuentzler, 1966-1967
S-3 Battlion Operations
19th Combat Engineer Bn.