The Red Cross

[Aenlic]

When I was injured in the Navy, my family got a notification from the numbnuts in the Navy bureaucracy saying only that I'd been injured. They had no idea how to contact me, where I was, what had happened or anything else. It took someone at the Red Cross to locate me in the Navy hospital in Naples when they were asked by my parents. Until then, they had no idea if I was dead or alive and the Navy was no help in that regard.

When my father passed away while I was in Orlando, my mother was unable to contact me for almost two days because the numbnuts (might have been the same numbnut from the earlier incident, who knows?) in the Navy bureaucracy wouldn't put an emergency call through to me at the secure, and amusingly "secret", facility where I was. She called the Red Cross again. The Red Cross managed it in 2 hours, getting a message to my CO who gave it straight to my master chief who then came straight to me. I was on a flight that night back home for emergency leave.

I'll always rely upon the Red Cross. I just sent the entire amount of today's automatic deposit of my VA disability check to them this afternoon. They have my complete confidence, unlike groups like the United Way.