War Stories 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, 1965-1966, 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 (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 Alta
Vista or 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 War-Stories' 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, '66-'67
S-3 Battlion Operations
19th Combat Engineer Bn.
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