Activate The Alert Roster!

On the morning of July 3rd 2023, I received a text message from Michael, a fellow veteran who I have met formally but do not know deeply. Michael was on the other side of the country in Eastern Tennessee where I live, work, and play. On that day I was in Santa Barbara, California vacationing with family enjoying an early morning stroll through a suburb neighborhood. Normally I would have responded that I’m out of town or waited until I returned to respond, but this text was different. It read, “veteran in crisis…” I called Michael immediately.

I’m approaching seven years since I wore the uniform of the United States Army but the soldier in me remains. I’m proud of and thankful for that. Since my retirement I’ve purposely immersed into the population I once swore an oath to protect, forming new relationships, learning, and growing. Since service remains in my DNA (and in the DNA of so many other vets), I became an advocate for veterans and their spouses speaking to, joining, and forming several veteran organizations which keep me connected to the ‘tribe,’ help me serve my community, and do what I believe to be enormously important – shrink the chasm which exists between us and the society we have returned to. My hope with this writing is to shed light on what we veterans are made of, the values we remain loyal to, and how others might emulate this.

Michael’s text sounded an alert so familiar to me and many other veterans after years of training and combat – “troops in contact!” “Veteran in crisis,” evoked a response etched permanently into my every fiber. Drop what you are doing and act no matter where you are or what you are doing – a brother or sister is in need. Michael’s text was lacking a lot of detail – who, where, what…? No matter. Those two words - ‘Veteran’ and ‘Crisis’ were all I needed. “I’m in, what do you need brother?” was my response. Our phone call revealed an older gentleman named Gary, in his 70s, living in an apartment with a ventilation issue causing this him sickness to the point he could not stay there. Gary didn’t have many options. Michael could attest to the ventilation issue having visited him. There appeared to be a careless, unresponsive landlord unwilling to assist. A crisis indeed. Activate the alert roster!

The alert roster is a document which outlines a hierarchy of people, from the rank and file to the very top leader and their contact information – the chain of command. It existed as part of a greater alert system to inform or alert every member of a military unit about critical information or generate an activity such as an immediate assembly for an important mission. It was created in the spirit of unit and individual military readiness or ‘fight tonight,’ anywhere in the world. Military units took great pride and went to great lengths to maintain a top level of readiness, the alert roster being a critical element. Every unit I served with had an alert roster and practiced using it, early mornings and late evenings, more times than I can remember.

In 2021 in my new home, the Tri-Cities of Eastern Tennessee, I formed a branch of an organization called the Veteran Business Collective (VBC), founded by a friend and warrior in Wilmington, North Carolina. The VBC was formed to leverage the business community to create a sense of purpose, belonging, and economic success for Veterans and their families. It is a place, among other things, where we can meet fellow veterans and their spouses, welcome non-veteran supporters, network, and assist each other in our post-military lives. VBC does not focus much on the process of rallying behind a brother or sister and their family in need – it doesn’t need to. We members, especially veterans, get it. The collective, in a less formal sense, it is a place where we can form our new alert roster for moments like this. In our post-military or encore lives, this alert roster is much less rigid, void of any rank or hierarchy – more of an ecosystem of interconnected and interacting veterans and non-veterans.

In my phone call with Michael, gathering situational awareness, I began to visualize this alert roster. Dan a friend and director of veteran affairs at the local university had connections into a local military affairs organization with people and a budget for this kind of assistance. Jack, a local HVAC business owner could help with the HVAC system. Others would indeed spring into action once we started communicating and learning more. And that is exactly what we did.

As I write, I don’t know the fate of Gary, but my full trust and confidence in the veteran network put my mind at ease some 2,400 miles from where he was. My brother and sister veterans and the wonderful people who love and support us in my Eastern Tennessee community answered the call that day and thereafter to ensure this man who served his country gets the care he deserves. I’m comforted to know help was not far away from Gary, but it must be said, there is more to be done. I hope all of us, after we address his immediate crisis can help determine its root causes and help Gary get to a place where he doesn’t need to reach out for emergency assistance. Too many veteran service organizations do well addressing the immediate needs of a veteran and or their family – in essence, placing a tourniquet on a bleeding wound believing they have solved something but fail to take the next step determining how the wound occurred in the first place. This aside, I’m proud of how responsive everyone was. I’m comforted to know, because of who we are and because we are interconnected and interacting as members of the Veteran Business Collective, and the greater Eastern Tennessee community, I and my family are in good hands, and so many others are as well should crisis befall them. It was a holiday weekend, and I was some 2,400 miles away but none of that mattered. I and we found a way to come to the aid of a brother. In this encore life of ours, the alert roster may not be formal, printed, and distributed to all members as it was when we served, but it is alive and well just the same.

Colonel Rob Campbell