What is the Background of the RAO?

Mid-Atlantic Regional Group

Blinded Veterans Association

Background of the RAO:

What is the Background of the RAO?

Below is a little background on the Bulletin that you my not be aware of. Feel free to use it or any part of it any way you want. The objective is to pass the word to as many vets as possible. As to myself I am the Director of the Retiree Assistance Office (RAO) which is a volunteer position. I am also an U.S. Embassy Manila Warden and VITA for the IRS which are also volunteer positions. Our office in Baguio City Philippines is unfunded and manned only by myself and my assistant, a Filipino Navy widow who is also a volunteer. Expenses I pay out of pocket which only amount to about $200 a month. Fairly cheap hobby that keeps me busy and active in my advanced years. The Bulletin is something I do to reach those who are unable to get to a RAO to keep themselves up to speed on veteran news and their benefits. At present I have returned to the states to obtain citizenship for my Filipino wife. However, I communicate daily with my assistant via the internet and will keep things going there in my absence. With the webcam I can continue to council those who need it.

Always good to hear the service is appreciated. I started it in 1994 by sending one or two articles every three to four days by email. The intent was to keep about 100 military retirees living in the Cordillera mountainous region of the Philippines up-to-date on things that affected them and open a channel of communications for them to ask the RAO veteran related questions. Over the years it has mushroomed to its present twice monthly newsletter with a worldwide readership of an estimated half a million readers via the 60+ thousand veteran and organization email address I send to. It grew so much that a few years ago I was trying to figure out some way to reduce the distribution because it was taking too much time to transmit while in the Philippines. This was alleviated somewhat when numerous stateside servers began forcing a reduction in distribution because their operating programs classified it as overseas spam and thus blocked it from their customers. When I started shifting to the states I discovered that I could no longer send the Bulletin via any stateside server because of distribution limits they place on their users. I was able to sidestep this problem through the use of a Newsletter Mailing List Provider service located in Germany. Works fine with DSL in U.S. but takes a lot longer in the Philippines. Distribution is still limited by some server's spam filtering criteria. At present a large number of AOL/MSN/Hotmail users are blocked because of their more rigid spam policies.

The inspiration to keep the Bulletin going and allowing its distribution to get so large came from MSgt Max Belike. He used to put out an excellent RSO Newsletter called "Max's Facts" of similar format before he was killed by the plane that hit the Pentagon on 911. When he passed the Army Retirement Service Office ceased publishing a retiree newsletter. Hopefully when my time comes someone else will continue to pass the word. Of the 70+ hours I spend weekly on the Bulletin the actual accumulation of data and research to put it together only takes about 20 hours plus another ten to answer email queries generated by the Bulletin articles. I spend the rest of my time keeping the address directories current. I receive input from over 100 sources mostly through the Internet. This allows me to pick and choose pertinent data from each source to consolidate into articles. It also has allowed me to build a library of military related data that I draw on to answer questions. Over the years the Bulletin's index of articles has grown to 20-25 pages which I post at http://post_119_gulfport_ms.tripod.com/rao1.html. Bob Dougherty of American Legion Post 119 in Gulfport Mississippi volunteered a number of years ago to provide a Bulletin library on this website since I did not have the time to maintain one. The articles listed there are available from me via email request.

I consider it is vital to keep our veteran community informed on issues. Almost everything is tied to legislation and vets need to know what their representatives in Congress are doing to/for against them. I now include a summary of veteran legislation as an attachment on the Bulletin to assist vets in tracking this. There are a number of military fraternal organizations that maintain lobbies in Washington to look out for our interests and generally they do an excellent job. However if legislators do not hear from their constituents on issues they will vote the party line or whichever way will benefit their personal interests. Vets have only two tools to protect or improve their benefits and welfare. Communicating with their legislators and voting. Both require being informed on the issues and that is what I try to do with the Bulletin. Keeping apolitical is sometimes difficult. Especially when legislators make proclamations in advance of issues to be voted on that will affect vets adversely. You can find full text versions of weekly House & Senate bills at http://thomas.loc.gov and/or http://www.govtrack.us which are searchable by topic or bill number. You can register to vote and identify your congressman at http://www.congress.org/congressorg/home/ . You can find his/her voting history and at http://www.visi.com/juan/congress/ you can send him/her an email. Keeping abreast of what it being said by members of both parties will identify their positions on issues and make it clear on who to vote for that will do the most good for our military community. You would think that with 24 million vets out there we would be able to have some impact on who gets into office to decide our fate.