Have you thought about recording and sharing your military history? Have you ever wanted to reconnect with the people you served alongside? Thanks to the website network of TogetherWeServed, established in 2003 by founder Brian Foster, you can do that. There is a separate website for each branch, and these sites are for all those who served in the U.S. Military. It is a place where you can reconnect with your former brothers- and sisters-in-arms and preserve a record of your military service that will live on for future generations.
Comrade Jim Reece is dedicated to helping Veterans record their military story through this platform. As the Chair of our Military History Committee, he’s happy to help you set up a profile for yourself or a loved one. As he puts it: “I was with Uncle Sam from Feb 1970 to … Jul 2004. This is my way of paying it back.” Below, Jim shares how he got started in all of this…
My military background was US Army, Feb 1970 to Jun 1977. I left the Army and went to school from 1981 to 1986 under the GI Bill. At the same time I joined the US Air Force Reserves at McChord AFB in 1985 to Dec 2009 and became a DA Civilian at Fort Lewis, WA. So it equates to about 40 years.
My brother was the Genealogy person in my family. Because he was working on the Reece family lineage, I decided to help him wherever I could. Later on I got the idea of honoring those Wilmington, NC Vietnam Veterans that didn’t survive the Vietnam War specifically because I knew many of them personally or because we were in High School together. At last count there were 24 that died for our country from my hometown.
I searched all over the internet trying to find whatever I could for each one of these Veterans. As I was searching, I discovered that since 1975, there had been many web sites that had started honoring all the veterans. Since then at least 5 have gone by the wayside. Many of these sites were still up and running but not being supported, and some just disappeared. Some of these charged for you to be able to view the information they had gathered.
As I was searching the internet, I ran across a web site called Togetherweserved in 2013. I went to work for them full time in 2014-2015. This allowed me to surf the internet and find many different ways to find military data and personal information on each and every casualty. I had access to all services which allowed me to update their military and personal information online. I was learning as I was working full time.
I ran across the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund (VVMF), aka Faces on the Wall, and saw that they had every Vietnam Casualty listed (58,281), and continued to make updates when it was needed as some Veterans died years later after the war ended in 1975. And some died before 1955 when the Vietnam War officially started.
In the very beginning I worked on those home-town casualties and chased down every photo I could find for those Wilmington, NC 24 Veterans. It took me a couple of years to find them all and get them documented in the appropriate branch in Togetherweserved (TWS). It didn’t take me long as my brother Tom and I worked on it together. He still lived in Wilmington so he had access to local connections. Once we posted all the information and photos for those Wilmington NC Veterans, we branched out to the county we lived in, and then to the whole state of North Carolina. We completed NC in 2017. Uncle Sam said we had 1,611 Fallen Veterans, between Tom and I we found 1,710.
Once we found all of the NC Fallen Veterans, I ran into another person that was chasing down photos and data for her home state, which was Hawaii. Her name was Janna Hoehn. She lived on Maui and we were able to find all over Hawaii in a matter of a couple of years. Her idea to get involved with this project was the same as mine: One of her classmates was killed in Vietnam and she wanted to honor him. Once we finished Hawaii, we started working on her home state of California which had over 5,570 Vietnam Fallen. Once we found all of these we started working on the Great Pacific Northwest (GPN). We finished the GPN and started picking up individuals and other groups that helped us find photo of the rest of the United States.
Building a profile on Togetherweserved (TWS) allows each individual to document their Military time as well as anything else they deem necessary. TWS also allows you to document where and why you joined the service (in Reflections) and it allows you to connect with all of those that served with you if they are members too. This is something they can do personally or have someone do it with them if they do not have a personal computer. I have volunteered to help Brad Pieratt create his legacy online in hopes that it might encourage others to do the same. The cost is about $20.00 until you turn 80. You won’t have to pay it forever as your data stays out there for infinity. What I am doing for Brad, is called an assist. I can do that for anyone that is interested. This will allow Brad’s family members to see what he did while in the service as well as see his many photos that he posted.
In the meantime, I have run into a few that I have served with. We connected once they put in the same assignment details that matched mine.
Jim would be hapy to assist you with your own or a loved one’s shadowbox setup. Email him at reecejim@yahoo.com or call/text 509-668-6101 and he will take the time to help you navigate the website, explaining what, where, and how to fill in data, and how to search for folks you might know.
TogetherWeServed is free to get started with no obligations, yet it is also entirely member-supported so there is an optional paid membership which goes to supporting the continued development and operation of the whole TWS website network.
