 Welcome to Voice of the Veteran on ThingTek Live Streaming Network series. Broadcasting from our downtown studio at Pioneer Plaza at the core of downtown Honolulu. I'm your host, Helen Dora Hayden, Veteran Advocate. Joining me in the studio today is Willie Jones, retired Air Force veteran that served in the Vietnam War. Today we're going to talk about veteran issues and concerns. Remember that our talk shows are streamed live on the internet from 12 noon to 5 p.m. every weekday. And earlier shows are streamed all night long. All our shows are streamed on Livestream.com. If you want the links to our live streams or previous broadcasts, which are available on YouTube.com, or if you want to subscribe to our programs or get on our mailing list and get our program advisories, go to ThingTekHawaii.com. If you want to pose a question or comment during one of our shows, please tweet us at ThingTekHawaii. We will try to get some questions answered by the end of the show. Willie, thank you so very much for being here on ThingTekHawaii. As a fellow veteran, I want to warmly welcome you. Thank you for having me. Sure. Could you tell us a little bit about your military history and your background? Sure. I come from a military family. My father was in the Army. And when I turned 17, he wanted me to join the Army. But since I grew up in the Army and I knew Army life, I didn't want any part of that. So I ran away and joined the Air Force. And for the next 20 years, I traveled around the world for 16 of those 20 years overseas. I was in the intelligence business. I spent two years in Vietnam and I retired after 20 years in 1980. Well, thank you very much. You went to Vietnam. Can you tell us a little bit about that experience and what happened when you came home? Well, the second time that I went to Vietnam, which was in 1968, as you recall, there was a lot of civil turmoil going on inside of our country. And so the war, the war, anti-war effort was at a fever pitch. So it was difficult for those of us going to Vietnam to reconcile what we were doing. Because, you know, we're citizens also and we listen to our families and our relatives and our friends. And here we are going off to do something that most of the nation is very loudly against. However, being in the military, one of the things you do is you do your job. You know, you have to put those things aside and you take your training and you go to Vietnam. So I went to Vietnam and I survived it. I left. I came home. One of the curious things was coming home, we were not told not to wear our uniform, but it was kind of understood that you didn't want to wear your uniform. You didn't want to be seen out in public in a uniform because the anti-war movement was definitely the loudest voice in the country at that time. I didn't, as an individual myself, I had mixed emotions about it. I didn't think that we should have been in Vietnam either, but it was my duty to go. And I went and I did my job, but I wasn't against the protest in terms of being wanting them to stop. What I really wanted is I wanted our political leaders to come to some agreement as to what we needed to do. Thank you. I have a lot of friends and relatives that served in Vietnam. One of my uncles was a tunnel rat during Vietnam. He came back very messed up, got some help, got better. But my dad tried to go to Vietnam and couldn't because all his brothers were already there. And because of the law that stated you could not have all their boys go all at once. So I appreciate every Vietnam veteran that served over there and thank you, Willie. It's been a pleasure getting to know you in our Toastmasters organization. We'll talk a little bit more about that in a minute. Let me just mention something about that, the brother. So I went to Vietnam the first time before the Gulf of Tonkin. I was there, I guess, preparing for the war. I didn't know that, of course. I was just a youngster. However, in 1967, my brother got drafted. He was 28 years old and he got drafted. And I knew that my brother was going to be sent to Vietnam. And I didn't want him to go because I knew that as an army foot soldier, he was probably going to get killed or get wounded or come back in amputee. So I told him that I was going back to Vietnam as a volunteer and I would stay there until he got shipped off to Germany or some other place. So he was very angry because he wanted to go to Vietnam because he was all gung-ho. But I went back to Vietnam and I said, I'm not leaving until you go to Germany. I stayed there. It was eight months into my second year in Vietnam when he got shipped off to Germany and I left. So he never got a chance to go to Vietnam and I'm very thankful for that. Yes, absolutely. It's been an amazing story talking to you before we met about the service that you've done and some of the awards that you got awarded for bravery. Can you talk a little bit about that? When I was in Vietnam, I flew in an aircraft as an intelligence person, doing intelligence type of work. I flew 135 combat missions over a thousand hours in the air in Vietnam. And after leaving Vietnam, I was awarded air medals and all of the things you get for doing a good job. I had gone to Greece and I was in Greece in my second year in Greece and I got a call to go to a ceremony. Not a call, actually. I got told to go and to wear my dress uniform. So I peered and I got stood up and all of the pumping circumstance of a grand show, I was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross. And Distinguished Flying Cross is a very high medal for valor. And the citation read that I had committed an act that helped to save the life of the president of South Vietnam. At the time, when the citation was being read, and my name being Willie Jones, my first thought was they got the wrong person because I didn't remember any event that rise to that occasion. So I called my buddies from around the world who were in Vietnam with me and the ones who were on aircraft with me that day, they also received the award. And we were trying to piece together what is it that we did. And we remembered that we had done something that was classified, actually, but because we did it the way we did it, it assisted the combat soldiers and boarding and ambush that was going to go after the president of South Vietnam. So I was very happy to have received it, but it was very curious, you know, after how I got it and then the fact that I'm standing there on stage very proud of something I did not remember. You know, I just want to talk a little bit about the whole draft process and how I firmly believe everybody should serve minimal two years in the military. I came, my background's Korean and in the Korea environment all males have to serve or you go to jail. Here in America it's a volunteer military, but it was not during the Vietnam War. Can you touch a little bit about that and your feelings about that? Yes, I am absolutely 100% convinced that it was a mistake to end the draft. I believe it was a mistake because here's what happens when young people join the military. You meet people and you live with people and you work with people and you play with people that you would never otherwise meet in your life and these people are citizens of your country, you're part of the greater community. You go in as strangers, you come out as friends or at least you come out with enough familiarity with each other that you don't come out with a lot of misconceptions. So in that regard although what I just said is not a military goal, it is a great result of people being joined together in the military. Secondly, one of the things that I learned in the military and all military people learn, you learn about your country, you learn about the United States, you learn United States history, you learn about the great things that the country has accomplished. It raises your level of patriotism to a place where you actually are proud. I mean oftentimes people stand up when the flag goes by but if you see people who are military people, you can see a look in their eye that's different and it's different because we have a different understanding of the greatness and the exceptionalism of our country and it doesn't matter what your ethnic background is, it doesn't matter if you've got tattoos, it does not matter. If you go in the military and you spend the time in the military, I believe you are a better citizen of the United States and I believe that the United States is a greater country. I will never ever relinquish that thought. Absolutely. You know one word that I learned when I served was reverence and there's been times when I've noticed children not taking their baseball cap off during the national anthem, not bother standing and I will get on that. I was at the Korean War Memorial one time and there were a bunch of teenagers just being very rude and inappropriate and I called them all over. My son cringes every time I do stuff like this but I called them over and I said, you're going to learn a little bit today and you're going to learn the word reverence and I think it's upon all of us as veterans that served that when we see disrespectful things like that that we teach them the proper way, that we take it upon ourselves because by the end of that little 20-minute presentation with those kids I said, now when you see somebody out there doing bad behavior you teach them reverence too and I'll never forget going to the Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and there were students dressed to lay a wreath and one child was in a suit. Everybody else was casually dressed. I walked up to that one child and I said, thank your parents. He said, no ma'am, I picked out the suit. I said, I'm proud of you son. That showed great reverence. My dad was a soldier through and through. So growing up I grew up in that environment where his uniform had to be perfect and his shoes had to be shined to the nines. He taught us these things on 4th of July and Veterans Day and all of these things. He was very ceremoniously. So when I joined the military I had all of these things already inside of me and it was easy spending time in the military because I was familiar with all of the things. Getting out of the military it becomes a little bit more difficult because on one side you see people disrespecting the flag but they have a right to do that. And then on the other side you see people who say they shouldn't be allowed to do that which I don't believe either but in a lot of cases neither of them really know the importance of either side of that issue. So as a veteran I think that veterans have a lot to offer in terms of the genuine what patriotism is genuinely. Not patriotism that you get on a placard or a sound bite. Something that's real is what I think that we should be looking for. Okay, we're taking a short break. I'm Helen Dora Haydn, veteran advocate. This is Voice of the Veteran on Think Tech Live streaming network series. We're talking with Willie Jones, retired Air Force veteran and Vietnam Morvette and 1997 world champion of public speaking and Toastmasters International. We'll be back in a minute so stay tuned for more of the story. I'm good. I'm good. I'm good. But I have a story. And I don't know where to start. I feel alone in a crowd. I can't sleep. I feel overwhelmed. I don't even know who I am anymore. I still have nightmares. I can't live like this anymore. I'm really not so good. But are you ready to listen? I'm finishing my education. My victory was getting help to put our lives back together. DAV provides veterans with a lifetime of support. My victory is being there for my family. Help us support more victories for veterans. Go to DAV.org. We're live. I'm Helen Dora Haydn, veteran advocate and this is Voice of the Veteran on Think Tech Live streaming network series. Talking about veteran issues and concerns with Willie Jones. When we left off that last break, we were just talking about our military service a little bit. But I'd like to shift a little bit and talk about some of the concerns you have as a fellow veteran in Hawaii. In Hawaii. I've lived in Hawaii now for 20 years. And one of the biggest things that I see in terms of veterans is how do we integrate veterans back into society after they've served their term, whether that's retirement or whether it's shorter than retirement. I would love to see that an outreach program that was blanketed the state in a way that veterans with skills. We have some pretty sophisticated equipment sitting over at Pearl Harbor or at these different bases around Hawaii. And the people who are operating that equipment are as young as 18 years old or they're 39, 40 years old in good health, well educated and well trained. The question is how do we here in Hawaii, how do we get these two things together? The need in the civilian world for skills and marrying that with people that are needed. And then there are the veterans who need social services. How do they get it? I know we have a tripler up there. We have a VA center up there. But I've been out to Kapolei and there's a veteran's center out there where veterans are transitioning through some of the problems that they have. There are programs all over the island where we have these things, but as a veteran I would like for these programs to be more visible, not to the veteran communities, which they are visible, but to the non-veteran community. Oftentimes I see politicians who, thank you for your service. And they appear on veteran's day, they appear on days when the flag is waving, but then when the lights go out and the cameras go away, it seems like these issues are not discussed. And as of right now, you hear nothing here, but as soon as another event comes along, the parades, the flag waving and all of that will be done. Not only here in Hawaii, but nationwide, but especially here in Hawaii, we're a small state. We are a small community, I should say, and we tend to know what's going on in and around our community. I believe that the veterans in this, and the energy that veterans have could drive this economy even higher and higher and higher at a much cheaper and more efficient cost than bringing people from the mainland. Absolutely, because they're already trained. They're already trained, they're right here. And the question is, having someone who truly understands the amount of technical expertise that is sitting right here on this island unable to find the door in order for that to be useful to us in this community, I would loudly advocate for that. I also want to let veterans know about the Oahu Veterans Council that meets this coming Saturday at 9 o'clock at Foster Village, the Oahu Veterans Building. But please come out. There's over 30 veteran organizations represented. The VA is there, VHA, VBA, they're all there. So come out, learn about these organizations, get some information, get plugged in into the system of all these organizations out in our community. But I'm with you. I want the visibility out into the community because it may not impact a certain veteran, but it may impact somebody that knows a veteran or somebody that's got a veteran in their family that really never reached out for services anywhere. I see that a lot. A lot of veterans don't even know that after they came back from Iraq or Afghanistan that they've got five years free medical coverage at the VA. With TAP briefings going on, you would think that that was something very important to know, but veterans are still falling through the cracks. And the biggest frustration that I see with veterans is filling out those forms, those VA forms. And, you know, I understand service organizations have limited time to see so many people. What I'd like to see is some organization get developed that that's all they do is help that veteran navigate the forms of the VA in whatever time that that veteran needs because I understand they're under pressure to perform to get the numbers crunched to get the numbers out, but that doesn't service the veteran that's needing the service. I heard the Secretary of Veteran Affairs on television a few months ago say that he had solved the problem of moving medical records from the Pentagon over to the VA seamlessly. So it wasn't going to be having to leave the military, go to the VA and reconstruct all of those things. So in terms of forms, again, we live in a high-tech world. This is not hard to do. If I can go online and I can fill out this form, how many pages it is, let's say it's six pages long, I never have to fill this form out again. Yes, they have that. It's through e-benefits, but I'm a strong proponent of utilizing veteran service organizations. So if you go on e-benefits and you do the form online and you hit send, it is you against the VA doing your claim. You have no representation. Oh, not just for a claim. I just mean basic information. But the e-benefits is the biggest tool out there for veterans. But never file it. Please do not file your claim on e-benefits. Hit print. Take that to a veteran service organization. Pick one. They're all in East Wing of the Tripler Hospital. But make an appointment. Take them and let them look through your records. Let them work on your benefits. I see. But e-benefits is the program. E-benefits is the program. Yes. So that's been, again, I think that as a veteran, I am grateful for all of the support that I've received since getting out of the military. I'm grateful for the community support. So I don't mean to lambast that in any way. What I advocate, though, I advocate us being more proactive and assist in veterans integrate themselves. Not only veterans who are wounded, but veterans who are okay. But they also need a transition, a way to transition and make those skills productive. Because we all lose. If a person spends 20 years in the military and they've been out there operating on one of those sophisticated airplanes, and then they get out of the military and they don't know how to get that skill, transferred over to Hawaiian Airlines or probably so much, not so much airlines, because it's sort of seamless. But in a lot of areas, a person works with computers and databases. And what they're doing is not call computers and databases. And so someone downtown, like a bank, needs someone in a data center. Or he needs somebody who's really smart at IT how do they get those two people together? And the biggest part of that is when they do their resumes, they have to translate their military verbiage into civilian words so that they can get hired with these agencies. And that's true, but even more than that, a lot of times if you can get this person in front of someone so that he can explain or she can explain what it is that they do. Because oftentimes they tell you in resume training, one page, but you can't put down one page that I've been working on a nuclear submarine for the last 16 years and these are the things that I know how to do. Could you imagine a civilian employer going, I don't have a nuclear submarine for you to work on? Right. And that's exactly what happens and they both lose because he really wasn't talking about a nuclear submarine, right? He's electronic. Right, right, right. He was talking about something that you need, but two things get passed in the night. Before we wrap up our program, I want to give you an opportunity to tell us about your amazing journey with Toastmasters. Oh, I joined Toastmasters as a gift to a friend of mine. I was still in the Air Force. I was in Arizona, William's Air Force Base, Arizona, which is where I retired. And I thought Toastmasters was a great organization at the time when I joined it, and I think so today because I'm still a member of it. But the thing about Toastmasters is it's a gift from you to yourself. What you do is you want to improve your ability to communicate, not just verbally, but non-verbally also. But as you're learning to do this yourself, you're also learning to communicate with other people because you're able to understand them better. You're able to understand their body language, their vocal variety, their voice inflection, all of the things that we communicate with when we're talking. So I'm in Toastmasters. I'm going to meetings. We meet one hour, usually all over the world, wherever they meet. And there's a speech contest that we have. And one person is chosen through the competition, a worldwide competition once a year to be the world champion. And I always want to be a world champion of anything. So I competed unsuccessfully the first time. And then I'd lick my chops and I went back and I got into books and I did the work. And when I was prepared, I said I'm going to do it again. And in 1997, I started the journey up the mountain once again and I reached the top of the mountain in New Orleans in August of 1997 where I won the world title. And if you listen to my side of it, it wasn't even close. Well, we are honored that you are here in Hawaii and continue serving all of us in Toastmasters and fellow veterans in the community. You're truly an inspiration, Willie, and thank you for being on our show. Is there anything you want to say before we close? Thank you for having me. I really appreciate a chance to talk about veterans and to perhaps spread the word even further. Let's work for the veterans. Thank you. Is there any tweets that have come in or any questions that anybody's posed that we can answer? Okay. So before we close, I just wanted to say, Willie and I were talking about this briefly before the show aired. And we believe that if veterans had one voice, especially on legislative issues, we could do anything. We could change America. So there's not... There's so many veteran organizations out there. What I encourage all of us to do is get together to have one voice, one voice to be heard legislatively so that we can make impact and change the future for us and our fellow veterans and their families. Today, it has been an absolute pleasure having Willie with us today and just getting to know him more personally as a retired Air Force veteran and his passion and his enthusiasm about helping us. But I'm Helen Dora Hayden and I hope that you will reach out to me in the future so that I can get you on this show. I'd love to hear from you. Please contact the station. I'm Helen Dora Hayden, veteran advocate voice of the veteran on Thing Tech Live Streaming Network series. We've been talking once again with Willie Jones and it's been a pleasure, sir. Speaking... Thanks to you for being here. Thanks to our broadcast engineer Ray, our floor manager Cindy, and to J. Fiedel, our executive producer who puts it all together. And thanks to you, our listeners for listening. Think Tank will be back tomorrow for the next show in our Think Tank Live Streaming Network series. So please tune in and tell your friends to tune in then also. If you want to get on our email and social media program advisories, click the link, thinktechhawaii.com. If you'd like to be a guest, underwriter, or volunteer, or if you want to join us in our downtown studio, I'd love to have you. In Pioneer Plaza, please contact J at thinktechhawaii.com. If you want the links to our live streams or previous broadcasts on Ustream TV or YouTube.com, just go to thinktechhawaii.com. Go there in our Facebook page and tell your friends that you like us. We'd love for you to like us and of course I'll see you next Thursday for more of Voice of the Veteran on Think Tank. I'm Helen Dora Haydn, Veteran Advocate. Aloha everyone.