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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.
Kevin Krall 0:00
You're listening to locally produced programming created in KU NV studios on public radio K, u and v 91.5. 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.
Unknown Speaker 0:42
You can see what's going on what's going on? What's going on?
Unknown Speaker 0:57
Good morning, Las Vegas. This is Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more. I'm Dave Washington, your host. And as always, I'd like to start out with a few announcements. I mentioned my aunt, Georgia and my mother's birthday was earlier this month both deceased now. Certainly Gone but not forgotten. Then want to express condolences to Mike armagard. His family my son in law's father. His name is believe it or not Logan Nathan Armageddon and he got a nickname Mike Armageddon from the golf course Believe it or not, and my uncle who was on the line who will be coming in shortly as a guest, Elsie Kennedy is very familiar with with the whole thing of golf because we do it a lot and we love it. And the other one is, well, let me finish up with Mike real quick because Mike was a great family me and Mike was born in December 31 1939 in Durban, South Africa, and a second child born to Sam ArmorGuard, Sam and Vernon, Governor, great guy again, he raised three great sons, one of which is my son in law, Nathan Armageddon, and he had another son, Jonathan, and the youngest one is Andre. And all these guys are a great family man with children and they gave Mike and Doreen his wife, six grandchildren, and they were very pleased and continue to be pleased with them. Those grandchildren are Kasara, Christian, Karen, Amira, Jessie, and a cure all children who love their Tata. That's what they call grandpa over in South Africa. But we hope that God will be pleased with the work that Mike did while he was here on Earth. And a second person I want to express condolences to his family is a former firefighter and colleague Coda Simmons. he transitioned a few days ago codice was a member of Las Vegas Fire and Rescue for over 30 years. And his children. Stacy and Christopher certainly will miss their dad as we will in this community because he was a stand up guy in our community, well loved and liked by a lot of people throughout a community and codice would have a lot of great gatherings at his home and this man could really really cook now as we visited my daughter April as we visited Stacy and, and Chris yesterday, Chris made it very well known to me that he was a much better cook than his dad. His dad was pretty cool, but and you know, myself being a former Army cook, I could not compete with neither one of them. But again, both Mike and coders who were both were avid golfers in fact Colas taught me how to pack my golf bag along with Herschel Clady, you got to have your something in your bag just in case it rains. And wintertime you make sure you have another little jacket in there to keep yourself warm. But again, both of them will be missed by their families as well as members of our community. In fact, Mike had not only a memorial but a funeral service both well attended by and he was well respected in the community. So condolences to those families. All right. Our first guest is Mr. Elsie Kennedy. And I always like to disclose if someone's a relative He is my uncle. He and my Magnolia are married. And they've been married for a great number of years. So LLC, how're you doing this afternoon? Or this morning? I should say what am I talking about this morning? LC Are you there?
Unknown Speaker 4:36
Yes.
Unknown Speaker 4:37
Are you doing this morning?
Unknown Speaker 4:40
Oh, no. Okay, good. Good. Good.
Unknown Speaker 4:43
Well, I was pleased that you accept the invitation to be on the Veterans Affairs show. And I know that you are a veteran. Please tell our listening audience. What branch and how long did you serve?
Unknown Speaker 4:58
Three years 10 months and 20 Seven Days.
Unknown Speaker 5:00
Wow got it down. We're just serve it.
Unknown Speaker 5:04
Very cool. Marine oh
Unknown Speaker 5:07
man, you know what? You know I never asked you LC about what branch did you serve? Now know where you get some of that attitude from because most of the Marines I know man they are they are different. I don't I do a number of Verghese for sure and I was a I was Army soldier. So you say you did three years plus
Unknown Speaker 5:30
three years, 10 months and 27 days.
Unknown Speaker 5:33
So what what was your job function well and well in the service.
Unknown Speaker 5:38
Okay, after I came out of training, I was at peloton and I went directly to Ken Ono Bay in Hawaii. Because I was assigned initially to the 26th infantry. And I think they were getting ready to ship me to Vietnam, but I got lucky. Is lieutenant colonel came on. He said, they'll seek me. He said, You know, I have something else I want you to do what I said, What do you do? He says, I check your your scores, you know, every week, we have little test scores, stuff like that. Right? And he says, I have something for you. And I would appreciate if you was I had no choice. Right? Did you witness it? As whatever, sir? I didn't say whatever. But I said, Yes, sir. We ended up working as a you call it a police officer. Really? They called the military police. Right. And that's what I did. And I worked. My detail was like, dictate, you know, containing operations and, and aid in foreign security personnel, and rendering emergency stuff like that. Do you know, man, is it investigating investigation?
Unknown Speaker 7:11
You know, and all these doggone us being I never asked you. One. What branch did you serve? I knew he had been in the military. And I know you left home as a young man. And I never knew that you were a military police officer did not know that.
Unknown Speaker 7:27
I was 18 years old. And I kind of went home basically because, you know, I had a big family. My uncle raised me. He had 10 kids. And I was 11. So I wanted to get out of dodge. And that's what I did.
Unknown Speaker 7:42
So do you recall what rank you hill when you discharge? Well,
Unknown Speaker 7:47
I I was ended up efore? If Yeah. Okay.
Unknown Speaker 7:51
So after you immediately left the military, what did you do?
Unknown Speaker 7:58
I came off, I went to work for us custom. US custom. And that's when the office was out at McCarran Airport. But you know, McCarran Airport was on Las Vegas Boulevard at that time, right. And I worked there, that's where I worked. And I stay with them for you know, not the time. And then I decided I want to do something else. And then I went I worked with construction. And I didn't like that because I like to sign and that shuffled. So I ended up going to work for Metro December the 29th 1969, I believe was
Unknown Speaker 8:40
so you had to be one of the early black policemen? Not the earliest but certainly, I don't think in the 60s there was that many blacks on the police department.
Unknown Speaker 8:52
I'll tell you how many exactly black people they had on the police for when I joined the police department. We had eight black officers and I made the night one. And I don't want to go into detail all the names and everything but it was nine of us. And and that was that was it. So
Unknown Speaker 9:14
where are you actually from?
Unknown Speaker 9:17
Okay, I was born in Earls Arkansas. Now, what it is, I couldn't tell you because my mom passed away after I was born. And my aunt was living in Chicago. And she I had an older brother, sister and me. And Rod came and got the three of us because she kept them on two capitals until my dad got his head all together. And then one was like five years old. My my father of course. You know, I see my father a lot. Right before that. He wasn't he didn't go AOL. But when I was five years old, I met my my stepmom which was my uncle that raised me just right And I know he went from there.
Unknown Speaker 10:06
You know, it's really interesting. Again, how you assume things. My assumption was that you were from Louisiana. You're from Arkansas. I mean, as far as born, that's it.
Unknown Speaker 10:20
Barrel e ar l e. archosaur. is right across from Memphis, Tennessee. Matter of fact, when you leave out of Memphis and cross over the bridge, you in rural Arkansas, my wife and I, my wife and I went back there some years ago when I took my two grandsons because I wanted to see what my mom where she was there at, you know, and if she had relatives back there, because I never met any of my biological moms, relatives, I never say never even seen any of and I, I couldn't come up with nothing because it was such a long time and, you know, and expires all the records and that was that was well,
Unknown Speaker 10:58
that's interesting that you at least tried to go back and make some connection with your, your lineage in your in your folks back in that little small town. Just across from from Memphis, across the bridge from Memphis, Tennessee to a little town in Arkansas.
Unknown Speaker 11:17
Yep. URL EA R L E to her URL, Arkansas.
Unknown Speaker 11:23
You know, you remember fate, fate, Duncan Daniel. She's down in Helena, Arkansas, with me and Marcia stay pretty much in touch with her. That is very, very interesting. So as you you said you served with Metro for how many years? Okay.
Unknown Speaker 11:42
I can give you a part of the story. I was with Metro total 24 years is what I get credit for. But in 1989, I became an enemy of the police power because I went to a seminar up in Sacramento, California 1984, I believe it was, in 1984, I went to a seminar. And I was sent up there by the police department to do an overview on organized crime for the state of Nevada, you know, as back Tony Spilotro with all his all his action, right? So I went up in Intelligence Bureau, and I got a lot of the documents and stuff they had in there a lot of you know, information, and I didn't even have a view on organized crime for the state of Nevada. And when I finished, you know, I, I mean, I was just, you know, going through the motions. But when I finished, seemed like everybody stood up and apologized. And there was a lady, it was a lady there. Her name was Theresa Johnson, and she was from the Justice Department in Washington, DC. So after everything was over with, you know, everybody goes into little bars and things and hang out for a little while before they go to bed. Right. So we went into this bar, and I was standing up talking to a couple of guys from Washington. So know, from Indiana, I was talking to a couple of brothers from Indiana. So this lady walked over to me. She says, Can I speak to you? And I looked at her beautiful lady, and I looked at you sure can just like that, right? And I told her two brothers. I was hey, man, I talk to you guys later. But what I didn't know what I didn't know. She was an attorney with the Justice Department. Okay. So she said to me, she says, you know, these, most of these departments, they send lieutenants, captains, majors, and so on and so on and so on. Why did the Metropolitan Police Department, San a detective, as a man, they set the best day Hey, all right. And that's how long standards are just like, he asked him a name I gave to my dress. I gave it to her. She asked me to my phone number. I gave it to her. I still didn't know that she was an attorney. From the Justice Department. She didn't tell me. So I, you know, I love and when when she left, she walked away. And her two brothers I've been talking to I went over and as a man, I look going here. Asked me some courses like that. And so Oh, you know, at least you got chance to talk to that box. That's one of the guys said, just like that. But about two weeks, three weeks later, I had two people knock on the door and Magnolia come to the door. She said to me, LC a white lady and a white guy is door. I said let him in patience. You can do it to the people. Right. So I went to the door and look, you know if standard now polite and everything. I open up the door. And his lady name was Jane Ryan. And a guy named angler Jim Angus. They were they were two attorneys from Washington DC. And then they started asking me a whole bunch of questions you know about about the Metropolitan Police Department and Not I just laid it on the line where it was. Well, as we have non-blacks, I said, they fired three and a heart three to replace the nine. And we have nine now. And it was nine when I came under Department 2918 69 Just like that, right? And so they have one Mexican, and they have no Asian. And so they have no women just like that, you know, and
Unknown Speaker 15:29
to time, Time really flies, man, we only had about 1012 minutes. And I want you to wrap up. But certainly, I'm gonna get you back on because seemed like you had a lot of detail about what was going on with the department. And I think it's important for our community to be well aware of that. So give me some closing remarks if you would.
Unknown Speaker 15:48
Yeah. Well, anyway, closing remarks is out of the whole thing. I ended up getting a lieutenant rank of lieutenant and, and I'm pretty satisfied with the salary they gave me.
Unknown Speaker 15:59
Alright, sounds good. Well, I appreciate you coming on. And I had we had Lieutenant Jackson last month. So I'm getting a lot of insight on what occurred down at the Metropolitan Police Department and hopefully, the work that you guys did have brought some changes. So thank you. I'll be in touch. Okay,
Unknown Speaker 16:16
see you all right.
Unknown Speaker 16:29
Once again, good morning, Las Vegas. It's the Veterans Affairs plus on 91.5, jazz and more on Dave Washington, your host. I have another guest. You know, I've known this young lady for a number of years and had no idea that she was a veteran. To me, Adele, how are you, young lady? I mean, were you telling me that when we saw you in the studio today, I'm like, what? Why did I do that? How are you?
Unknown Speaker 16:56
I'm doing well. Thank you so much for having me on the show.
Unknown Speaker 16:59
Please, please tell our listening audience. What branch Did you serve in? And how long did you serve?
Unknown Speaker 17:07
So I am a army army officer. Yeah, I served in here in the Reserves at the National Guard for Nevada National Guard. And I served for nine years. And I also served during my time as Metro officers. So I worked for the lvmpd as a police officer during the same time I was serving as a MP and the 72nd MP corps here. Wow.
Unknown Speaker 17:36
So were you born and raised in Las Vegas?
Unknown Speaker 17:40
No, I was not.
Unknown Speaker 17:41
Where are you from?
Unknown Speaker 17:43
I am my fit. Okay, so I was born in Buffalo. But my father was a corporate salesperson. So my family has literally lived all over. We lived in West Virginia and North Carolina, Ohio, until my parents divorced. And then when my parents divorced, my mother moved us all to Vegas, and we've been here ever since. Okay. And
Unknown Speaker 18:06
you said your job in the military was a military police? Did I hear that? Correct? Okay. Correct. And how, and you actually spend time in the reserves to actually I assume get a retirement from them as well. On the military? Did you know
Unknown Speaker 18:22
No, I don't. I know. Now, there's a whole bunch of veterans issues that people were talking to me about right now that I haven't tapped into. Because most people don't realize that as a veteran. There's a lot of resources available to you. Right now. I'm currently the president of the UNLV veterans alumni club out there at UNLV, where you're at right now. And I'm a whole lot, because my part as a president is to be aware of resources and things that are available for veterans in our community. And I'm finding out and learning a whole lot, because a lot of times people think that it's fair if they were reservists or if they were in the guard that they have no access to VA benefits and things such as that, which is not true, right? Yeah. So that's something I've learned in my capacity working with the veterans Alumni Club.
Unknown Speaker 19:11
And how long have you been leading that group?
Unknown Speaker 19:16
I've been with the group, some of the founding member of the group we started about five years ago, and I am the current president. So I have a one year term. So since January, I've been the president. I was the previous vice president prior to this.
Unknown Speaker 19:28
Congratulations. So what rank were you when you were discharged?
Unknown Speaker 19:34
I was a first lieutenant. First Louis,
Unknown Speaker 19:37
right. Yep. And you serve better anymore. So once you once you actually exited the military, what did you get into?
Unknown Speaker 19:52
I was actually as I was mentioning, I was actually working for Metro. So I just continued with my law enforcement career. a lot with Metro. So
Unknown Speaker 20:01
you, you were law enforcement with Metro prior to getting into the reserves or vice versa. I was in the military first. Okay. And then just kind of continued on, as you were serving with Metro. Correct. Excellent. Excellent. So what were some of the different positions you hill while you were with Metro,
Unknown Speaker 20:25
I had some good, I had some good jobs. I worked. I worked the vacant city for a vast majority of my career. And next city is the area down there now behind the stratosphere. The time was behind Vegas world. And it was called to make a city because of the fact that the show girls coming from the main part of the strip would stay in those apartments back there, and they would suntan outside naked, you know, because the show growth was topless. So they call it the Naked City. Most people don't know that trivia.
Unknown Speaker 20:54
So that's what did it mean? Give me Give me that again.
Unknown Speaker 20:58
Okay, so that is this is a trivial, right? The reason that that area is called the Naked City is because the show girls from the strip because you realize Naked City is right off of the Las Vegas Strip, right. And it's off a Sahara, the strip technically, in that Sahara, technically, right. But anyway, so the Showgirl stayed there behind Vegas rock in those apartment complexes, and they would actually do their studying and everything. So they could be tan for their performances. And they would do it topless. The Naked City.
Unknown Speaker 21:27
That's something I trust, and would imagine that not a lot of people know that, including myself. And I've been here for 60 Some years in the city of Las Vegas. Very interesting. Look, you got a lot of stuff going on in your life. Let's talk a little bit about that. If you will just kind of give an indication of some of the things that you were involved with. I know you're your ordained minister, and you do some I think you do some movies or something. When we when my wife and I saw you at the store, you was giving me an indication?
Unknown Speaker 21:58
Yes, I was on my way to the Cannes Film Festival, which is like probably one of the most prestigious locations for filmmakers to go people want their films, been at Cannes, and they want to be sure it can. So I was blessed to be at the Cannes Film Festival in France is my second time being there as a producer, because I have produced since 2018 13, different short educational films having to do with some of the expertise I got in law enforcement, which as you were asking me some of the assignments that I had when I was on Metro. One of the assignments I had was right prior to retirement, I was a domestic violence detective. So I've had all kinds of specialized training in the area of dealing with victims of sex trafficking, stalking victims, domestic violence, those kinds of things. So learning from some of the situations that I experienced as a detective, I create short dramas. So they're fictionalized dramas, but educational promise to tell people and show people in a short format, how to recognize and how to get out of those particular types of situations. So
Unknown Speaker 23:05
these are I would imagine that that someone that's training their personnel would order these types of short videos to for their training sessions.
Unknown Speaker 23:17
You know, what, I have actually done in person training sessions. So I've physically gone like I've done a curse. I've done some here in the in the valley, we're actually have the film and then I teach from the film. So basically, after they seen the film, then what I would say is, okay, if you remember in this in this particular situation, Nora was doing this, this and this Miss, well, this is how you would have handled this or or this is how you want to approach that. Yeah. So I do what is called best practices and best practices of domestic violence and best practices in dealing with victims of sexual I'm sorry, correction, sex trafficking, that sexual violence, but sex trafficking. So yeah, I do that for I do present that for civilian and police agencies, and have been blessed to be able to do that around the world. In fact, I, my most recent one was for KEARSON I got to go and do training. And curious, I was just wondering what they call the ABC islands. Out in the middle of the Caribbean. There's a Aruba, Bonaire, and Curacao. So it was very nice experience to go out there. And I got a lot of the invites and do get a lot of the invites because of my police experience. Because during the time I was on Metro, I was a part of the International Association of Women police, and was blessed to travel literally around the world and learn about different policing situations around the world, even after I retired. So I retired like in 2012. I took three years and just went and visited by police colleagues around the world and just kind of tapped into learning a lot about my specific concern was dealing with women's issues in their particular countries, and finding out how women were treated and how women were cared for, you know, and I went through a few after Working countries and they actually domestic violence isn't even on the books. There's no such thing as domestic violence, you know, if you beat your wife, oh, well, if he dies Oh, well, you know, I mean, it was very sad situation because of some of those countries women are bought by dowry. And I say bought by dowry. People will say, Oh, yes, he has a dowry. Well, basically, the husband family buys the the woman and the woman is treated just like sometimes like an indentured indentured servant. Sometimes just like cattle, literally, like if he gives birth to and you know, blesses the family with six kids, decides she wants to leave her husband because he's abusive. They tell her Oh, yeah, yeah, go ahead and leave. But your children stay here, you know. So it's very interesting dynamic in some countries.
Unknown Speaker 25:47
Absolutely. That is very, very interesting. Look, I want to double back to the UNLV svet. Veterans love my club. How can people, particularly vets who hopefully are listening out there can can make contact?
Unknown Speaker 26:06
Well, they can contact, they can get a hold of me. I'm at coach to me at Gmail, they get home at coached me a Gmail, or you can go on the UNLV website. And we actually do have our own page on the UNLV website, the UNLV veterans Alumni Club, and there'll be a link on there to also communicate with me because you end up connecting with me through that link. We our main goal is we do community service, we got to me, sir, we just got through a memorial day doing an event in connection with healthy brain warriors out on Mount Charleston, where I was blessed using my ordained minister hat, you know, to walk everybody through a kind of a memorial ceremony dealing with veterans, and the veterans were bothering basically their fallen comrades, little people who they knew in service who lost their life, you know, so the true meaning of memorial service for veterans right now, because many veterans are looking back and thinking about their colleagues that you know, are not here to celebrate, you know, that day. So yeah, so we do community service, we do professional development, we have a class, we have a training coming up in September, that is going to be about educating business owners, people who may be veterans who may be interested in in having a business or want to build their business, we're going to have specific specific speakers that will come out and tell them what they need to do to enhance their business or to start their business, whichever is needed. So veterans alumni will be doing that. And to become member, anybody can partake. Veteran anybody. But we our membership consists of people who graduated from UNLV. So I graduated from UNLV. And oh my gosh, this is so hard to say in 1987.
Unknown Speaker 27:52
What was your What was your major criminal justice?
Unknown Speaker 27:57
And I actually went to the ROTC program out there, the Army ROTC program at UNLV. And now they have army and air force out at UNLV. And if any of your listeners are listening in, they're interested in looking into coming on campus, maybe starting their educational career, they haven't used their VA benefits or anything yet. haven't reached out to me too, because there's many of resources available for those who are interested in going back to school, you know, coming out of EA or CSN, one of those locations. There's a lot of programs I can introduce them to and I would be happy to get them on board. Absolutely.
Unknown Speaker 28:34
Well, thank you, young lady. I appreciate it. I'm so pleased that you took this opportunity because I think you share some stuff that'll be very important to our listening audience. So thank you so much. This is Veteran Affairs plus, go ahead.
Unknown Speaker 28:50
I said thank you for having me Chief. I appreciate you Sure.
Unknown Speaker 28:52
This is Veterans Affairs plus or 91.5 Jazz and more talk to you next week.
Outro Song 29:33
The smoke in the filter hey when they stay on the pavement we
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