Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington July 22, 2023

What is Veteran's Affairs Plus W/ David L. Washington?

Veteran's Affairs Plus discusses the issues that veterans in Las Vegas deal with on a daily basis. Your host, David L. Washington connects listeners with relevant community resources and information that they need to help veterans or themselves.

Speaker 1 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NV studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5.

Kevin Krall 0:11
You're listening to special programming sponsored by making moves life coaching services, the content of Veterans Affairs plus does not reflect the views or opinions of public radio K, u and v, the University of Nevada, Las Vegas, or the Board of Regents of the Nevada System of Higher Education.

Speaker 3 0:42
You can see what's going on what's going on? What's going on? Good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host and pleased and happy to be with you on this Saturday morning. I'll start out as usual with a couple of announcements I got an email from my commander, Jeff Jones, there is going to be what is called a PAC X summer, vet phys townhall and resource fair it will occur on July 29 20 am to 5pm in North Las Vegas at the Medical Center at 6900. North Pecos. North Las Vegas 89106. So I trust that there'll be some good things that they will share with veterans who need some assistance. Another document I received was that the federal government thank goodness is going to put a few billion in fact $3.1 billion into addressing homelessness. And amongst that that number will be veteran so we are pleased that there are some action that's going to be taken because about 33,000 veterans across the country lack access to permanent housing. So it's down 11% Since 2020, and down 55% since 2010. So there's work being done. And we certainly appreciate the know, those numbers and points of Count have been released by the Department of Housing and Urban Development. Good morning, once again, Dave Washington here. And I certainly want to acknowledge and express condolences to the family and friends of Larry Phillips, longtime Las Vegas resident, and he went to Rancho High School if my memory serves me correctly, great guy, a longtime member of will now former member of the Valleyview golf club. So to his family, we express condolences and we will miss the brother good man and like say I've known Larry for most of my life starting in, in school elementary, junior high and on up. So may God be pleased with the work that he did. Also on this Saturday, later on today, Kota Simmons will be put to rest by his family, his children, Stacy, and Christopher. And I know that Eugene Campbell did a video that I hope that they will show just kind of gave some acknowledges to Kotis in the work that he did. As a firefighter. He was a senior firefighter on the department. So we are pleased that with the work that he did, and he was an encouraging person to me, code has never really seeked any rank, but he was a a stock professional. And he took care of business as a firefighter. So once again, we want to acknowledge his family by expressing our condolences to them on the loss of their dad, and our friend, firefighter codice Semmens. Already, we're gonna have a guest come up. Bob is a golfing friend of mine. He will be on our show shortly. So with that, I'm waiting for Bob to call in. In fact, let me make sure that he's on the line. And we will get some some discussion from Bob because Bob is actually a veteran, believe it or not, and we do try to get veterans on here so we can talk about some of the things that they have done during their career as a military veteran, so we'll be back shortly with Bob Luhan in just a few minutes

Speaker 3 4:38
once again, good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. I got a one of my golfing colleagues on the line this morning to answer a few questions that I have for him Bob, how you doing this morning?

Unknown Speaker 4:54
Fantastic. Great, great

Speaker 3 4:56
Bob. Give a proper pronunciation of your last name Because I may have butchered it a few minutes ago.

Speaker 2 5:03
This little huddle the J is the Nate's like in San Jose.

Speaker 3 5:07
Alright. Luhan Oh, go ahead. Yeah, Bob and I a week off with a couple of different golf clubs around the town. And when I found out that Bob was a veteran, I say this perfect for him if he'd be willing to come on the show. So Bob, tell us what branch of service and how long did you serve?

Speaker 2 5:26
I was in the Air Force for almost 22 years.

Unknown Speaker 5:31
Air Force almost 22 years. So what was your job?

Speaker 2 5:35
All right. What to personnel school that later became human resources, but 16 week personnel school and eight week technician supervisor school.

Speaker 3 5:49
So did you pursue that? That particular field HR human resources after you retired?

Speaker 2 5:57
know, when I retired, as most people do that are senior NCOs that have supervision and supervision of people. You always start out at the entry level in civilian life. So I never got back into the personnel career field. But anyway, I did learn a lot of customer service that was applied to all the jobs I had.

Speaker 3 6:24
So what field did you actually pursue work after you? You left the military?

Speaker 2 6:31
Yes, as soon as I retired in February of 1980, I started working for the Spokane Police Department. Then I moved to Tacoma and started working in the information services field.

Unknown Speaker 6:47
Okay, so

Speaker 2 6:49
then I thought after I retired from there, I went working for the school district and worked as a budget analyst.

Speaker 3 6:56
Oh, you got a quite a rich background from a career field standpoint. So you did a few years and each one of those areas, and then finally just did a total retirement?

Speaker 2 7:12
Yes. When I left the school district, I had turned 65. And I said, No, it's time to retire and just enjoy life and continue doing my golf thing. All right.

Speaker 3 7:27
Yeah, I should tell you all, Bob's a pretty good golfer. In fact, he's called himself and Bob, but because he really has a great, great short game. And I noticed as we age, as some of the guys told me, when I first started golfing about 17 years ago, as you age you your distance, and length will start to shorten. But one thing about Bob, I'll tell you guys from a golfing standpoint, it's always down the middle. Not very long, but down the middle. So Bob, how long have you actually been golfing?

Speaker 2 8:00
I adopt on and off in the military. And then when I retired. From my last job, I started playing golf a couple of times a week.

Speaker 3 8:15
So you joined Valley View and then the current group that we both enjoy, we like the way Jim because he kind of runs things he's got a pretty tight program he and Lamar and and who's the other jet is afraid? Yeah. Yeah, they do. They do a good job in running that program. So

Speaker 2 8:37
yes, I'm impressed with with the work they did when I was in Macomb. I was a annual member there and McChord Air Force Base and belong to the men's club. And they ran a pretty good tight ship. And one year they decided to make me a tournament director. So I learned that part of the job. But all in all, I'm impressed with the way Jim Lacoste. He runs this golf tournament.

Speaker 3 9:02
I agree he's doing it doing a great job. And he says a lot of things to give us all some infant incentives in terms of how we handle things and, and just making sure that we all have a good time out there. And if there's any discrepancies, he generally handles it. And I mentioned Fred, I actually meant to mention, Rick. Rick is the other one along with Lamar, who assists GM and been putting that together for us. So are you married? Bob?

Speaker 2 9:32
I got married in March of 69, march 19. And the third of April, I was in Vietnam for my second tour while I was in Japan. I've been married 54 years.

Speaker 3 9:42
54 years. Great. I guess my wife and I will not catch you. We're at 51 Right now, going toward 50. So any suggestions that you might give any youth that may be giving thought or consideration to a career in the military.

Speaker 2 10:03
Well, I worked in personnel had that that time in the military of four different sections. And each section had four work centers. So I finally worked in about 12 of those jobs. But my experience and 58, when I graduated from high school was I didn't have any plans. I wanted to go to college, but I couldn't afford it. I loved accounting at that time, detail minded work. But I said, Well, I like to travel. Let me join the military. And in the military, first of all, you grow up a man or a woman, as just out of high school, you grow up, you become mature, you learn your job, you learn job responsibilities. It's a growing experience. And I got to travel a lot to the far east into Europe. And at that time, I did not know that when I kept re enlisting every four years, but then afterwards, I realized that when you retire, you get free medical, which at later in later years, you find out boy, the medical plans are so expensive, have to be retired. And that's when you really need medical coverage. But it's one of the I guess, pluses of the military, you, you get free medical, and after 20 years, you retire at 50% of your of your day. So I had no regrets in the military, I got to travel, I enjoyed it. And my wife was with me. In Japan, she was with me in Los Angeles, she was with me in Italy. So I think we did pretty good for the young kids. If you don't have any plans, and you want to travel and you want to join the military and grow up and become a juror and journaling your responsibility. Remember whatever job you learned in the military, if you quit after four years, in that training you receive, you're going to apply it to your civilian job, whether you're in roads and grounds, whether you're in electronics, whether you're in any kind of a field. The civilian employers would love to have you with that experience, where you apply hands on training, and you pray and you get promoted. Quick. Can you advance quick?

Speaker 3 12:26
Excellent. So but where are you and your wife from? And how and how long have you lived in Las Vegas?

Speaker 2 12:35
I'm from Tulare, California, in the San Joaquin Valley between Fresno and Bakersfield. And my wife, I met her in Japan, we worked in the same building. Oh, really? When I met her in 1969. So we've been together a long time. And I met her and after a year there I asked her out for coffee. And then we started getting closer together. So before I went to Vietnam, I said you want to get married before after I come back from Vietnam. She says before before

Speaker 3 13:12
that's interested me and my wife. We got married in the middle of my two years I was a draftee and in the United States Army, but it's very interesting. You're from Northern California,

Unknown Speaker 13:25
where they've actually the middle the state middle,

Unknown Speaker 13:27
okay. Brothers and sisters.

Speaker 2 13:29
I come from a large family. We had 14, my mother had 14 Kids, six brothers and seven sisters. So it was kind of a situation where when my father died in 1949, when I was 10 years old, she kind of be became the matriarch of all the family of all the kids. And I learned after my two brothers got married in 2022. I said to myself, when I get married, I'm going to make sure that I don't get divorced, because the only things that suffer are the kids. That's true. I didn't get married till I was 30. Mm hmm. Yeah, you could say I was at that time mentally mature,

Speaker 3 14:23
I bet. Well, that's you appreciate you coming on Bob. And you think you share some very interesting suggestions to young folks? Because you don't think about that when you're young. But all the qualities, the experience that you gain while in the military, those can be right on right, rightfully so converted right into military life. So Bob, thank you and I look forward to having you back on the show sometime in the future and certainly appreciate the opportunity to play golf with you on Mondays, my friend so take care and tell your wife we said hello and once again this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz ammo

Speaker 3 15:09
Good morning. Once again, this is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I have another guest that we will be talking to shortly. In fact, we just had Bob on, Chip. So it's your turn in the hot seat. We appreciate you coming on. No problem, brother. So, Chip, tell us how, where are you from? And how long have you lived in Las Vegas.

Unknown Speaker 15:33
I'm from Washington, DC born and raised. Most recently, I was in doing Maryland for the 20 years right before I moved here, which was about four and a half years ago. And I'm loving it. I'm loving the no snow, no ice climbing,

Speaker 3 15:51
though. So in terms of family, brothers and sisters, I have

Unknown Speaker 15:57
an older brother. And we grew up together pretty much without mom, single family, single parent household. And and then I have a younger sister. My dad got remarried and had you know, they had a baby baby girl. Call her little sister, but she's the boy.

Speaker 3 16:17
So born and raised in the DC area. Now, one thing that really piqued my interest in you when we when we first met a few years back and you had arrived in town and being another one of my avid golfing type buddies. You told me you work for Census. So give us an indication of what's that all about and the importance of it, if you

Unknown Speaker 16:43
sure I agree. Yeah, I was with the Census Bureau for about 31 plus years. I was when I retired I was a senior IT manager working the 2020 decennial census, in an IT capacity basically monitoring an IT contract, close to $2 billion contract to set up and maintain the infrastructure that was used for the 2020 census, which is that's the biggest operation the federal government puts on outside of any military operation. Wow. The decennial census. Yeah. And during my 31 years, I did a host of things in it area, I pretty much a systems analyst programmer. That was a business analyst. That was the IT project manager. And as I just stated, I was an IT services, contracting officers representative where I did oversight of the work being done the contracting work. The tracking, getting what it paid for.

Speaker 3 17:52
So what did you do prior prior to joining them? Was there any other work experience prior to joining you

Unknown Speaker 17:58
know, I was in school prior to that. Graduated from Hampton University back in 1987. And in Hampton, Virginia, HBCU. Right. Yeah. And it pretty much. Eight months after graduation, I started working with the Census Bureau and never looked back.

Unknown Speaker 18:15
Wow, that's that's really cool.

Unknown Speaker 18:18
I retired in December. I was here. So I finished out that COVID year. And instead, you know, that's enough. I can I was doing good financially. So I was able to retire, which I'll talk a little bit more about that retirement later. But yes, I had a great time. Excellent. So

Speaker 3 18:37
you joined after your college time. In fact, that's what Gene Campbell son got his bachelor's from Hampton.

Unknown Speaker 18:49
Oh, yeah. It must be a smart guy. Here, right. Yeah. So

Unknown Speaker 18:55
now where's your wife from?

Unknown Speaker 18:59
She's from Southeast Missouri. Okay. But she ended up in LA with her aunts and uncles, when she turned 14 on a sweater for two weeks vacation to LA. And they ended up talking her into staying and attending and finishing high school in LA. And one of her counselors strongly in Amin strongly encouraged her to go to Howard University. She didn't let her apply to any other school. So he ended up in a house in Washington, DC, and see that it works for the Census Bureau. And that's where we met at the sensitive Bureau but at USC, she has Missouri Southern Missouri roots.

Speaker 3 19:40
interested in this, the HBCU hook up. In fact, you know, you know, Bert Washington, Chief, Bert Washington. He's one of the younger colleagues. Yeah, Bert went to Howard. Sure did. And I think he got his master's here at UNLV. Yeah, in fact, I had gene and bird on two weeks ago, I believe it is believe it was, but excellent. So yeah, I met at Howard, where she was at Howard University. And, you know, I've since gone to Howard, then came to work for sensors, and that's where you met.

Unknown Speaker 20:14
Exactly. Yes, sir. Okay.

Speaker 3 20:16
So can you share any thoughts that you may have with respect to why people in particular, I think blacks and browns, I don't think that they file that information as readily. And as often and just doing it, period. You need any thoughts on it?

Unknown Speaker 20:39
Oh, yeah. Most people really don't understand what happens to the census data after it's collected. It's only every 10 years. So, you know, somebody's 15 years old, I have no idea. But anyway, the Census Bureau data is used to help the government, distribute, ingest, distribute to the state, in local and tribal governments. It's $1 trillion a year. And they use census data to determine who to send that money to where to send it, and how much money to send those places. And it's largely based on population sizes, which means if people's responses to the census, so if you don't respond, you're part of you. You're part of the problem of not getting the resources that you want, the more and better you respond to the Census questionnaires, right, the more you are helping your community receive the services and funding from it starts with the federal government, but it's pretty pretty much pushed directly to the state, and then states run their program to do Medicaid, Medicaid, and you know, housing, health, everything.

Speaker 3 21:50
So what, how many questions generally, is it? And can you share some of the types of questions that may be asked that that may make people fearful, if you will, for lack of a better word?

Unknown Speaker 22:05
Yeah. And so the Census Bureau is pretty much broken up into three major program areas, the decennial census that everybody knows whenever you play census, that's what everybody thinks about the decennial census, that's basically an operation we put on every 10 years, we say now, every 10 years, count every person in the United States. There's two other program areas, there's a demographic program area, and they pretty much do annual surveys, you have much smaller participation. So if a person receives a census questionnaire for a survey, that person should really look at it as, like 50 people in the neighborhood. They're answering for all 50 people, their answers will count for all the 50 people that they're representing. So it's critical, not only to do the decennial census, but any other type of census related surveys, that that you happen to be contacted for it's imperative that you respond, you smile in a timely manner. You're only helping your community and you're only hurting your community when you don't respond.

Speaker 3 23:17
And you're saying that that's that's the one that's done, and it was more of a survey?

Unknown Speaker 23:21
Yes, yeah. Okay. And that's where they gather information. Like, you know, how many people live there, you know, their race and kind of occupation they might have, what kind of health issues major health issues they might have. And you can see how all of that information is going to help determine how much money and what types of resources that community needs. Right. So the other thing, the other thing you mentioned about people being nervous about answering the question, right, and I'll give I'll give you a good example, back in World War Two, the Japanese folks were, well, the United States government was a little afraid of Japanese Americans, not knowing who was a spy and who wasn't. So the government. Some summits, like I think was the FBI reached out to the Census Bureau for a list of all Japanese residents. The Census Bureau said no, we cannot give out that data. We are constitutionally mandated to keep that data confidential. We don't give it to anybody when that went all the way to the Supreme Court and the Supreme Court ruled in the Census Bureau's favor said nope. Since this cannot give that data at that at that level, you can never identify a single person based on any census output. Your data is saved your personal information is extremely safe with the Census Bureau

Speaker 3 24:40
who so you said there's three areas so you mentioned the main the 10 year one in the survey that could come out annually to just a target few people. And then the next area is what

Unknown Speaker 24:51
we call the economic program, economic program area and that's where they they have developed a database of every business in the United States. And they'll send surveys out to those businesses and they'll ask business type questions, your revenue, your income, your your cost, to run your business, those kinds of questions so that people can can, you know, gauge and take a look at what how we're doing economically in the United States, not only demographically and those economic folks, they do what they call an economic census every five year versus the 10. year for decennial. So every five years, they reach out to every business and ask about 1012 10 or 20 questions that business. And they maintain that data, you know, throughout the, you know, five years, before they go out to ask again, anybody can go to the census.gov website, and you can see that it's designed to help people know what's going on, or who's in their community, what how many people what, what types of people, men, women, race, a, they have, it's amazing how much data in it's all free, it's all public information. It's all out there. And businesses used that other businesses will use that to help with their help develop their marketing, right and target.

Speaker 3 26:18
Man, that is so interesting, you know, I'm, you know, I've learned something today, because my assumption was the 10 year, that's it, but just five years, they do a survey type that may go to, excuse me, that one will be more the business area. And then the one year can go to anyone in the community. And you're you're representing a group of people as you decide to respond or not respond, you're taking a lot of responsibility in your hands to, to deny something that you may need, because I know you mentioned the various medical such as Medicare, Medicaid, those types of things. Those monies are divvied up based upon the need for that particular community.

Unknown Speaker 27:03
That's right, exactly. Yeah.

Speaker 3 27:05
Man, this is very, very, very, very good information. So tell me, what would you share or suggest to anyone who may be interested in that particular profession? Be the young lady Oh,

Unknown Speaker 27:20
yeah, so I T field is, is pretty popular students. They all know about the IT field, but there's different disciplines. You've got a systems analyst, which was like me, basically a programmer. And then you got your web developers, you've got the system administrators, you got the folks that do IT infrastructure, you've got your folks that do IT security, and then you got your project management. So there's different disciplines that you can focus on. If you're in the IT field. One or more of those may pique your interest. And I encourage folks to look into those try to take a class and all of the ones you think might be interested, interesting for you. And then you can decide which path you want to go down further. But it's a wonderful field to get in. is job security. Probably nothing like it. That's in terms of the IT field. Second part is, is working just as a federal employee, and federal employees, you know, that's every discipline you can think of lawyers, the IT folks, you know, every discipline, the administrative side accountants, business managers, I would encourage people to go to the website called USA Jobs, all one word USA Jobs, you can filter on the different jobs or disciplines that you're interested in. Excuse me, and you can have the website email you if if a job opening comes up, right. You can also you can also limit it to a specific geographic area. So if you say Las Vegas, Nevada, any job in the IT area, send me an email and you'll you'll get an email. You don't have to keep checking every day you wait for your email.

Speaker 3 29:11
Very interesting and great information you shared ship. Thank you so much for coming on the show. And I look forward again to our next opportunity out on the golf course man, so we got to hit him straight. Right. Thanks a lot, brother. Appreciate you. All right, brother. All right, take care. Once again. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5 Jazz and more. Had two wonderful guests today. Bob and Chip

Unknown Speaker 30:11
Smoking the tilde Hey. All the way

Transcribed by https://otter.ai