THE VIRGINIAN-PILOT
Copyright (c) 1996, Landmark Communications, Inc.
DATE: Monday, March 18, 1996 TAG: 9603160057
SECTION: DAILY BREAK PAGE: E5 EDITION: FINAL
TYPE: Column
SOURCE: Larry Maddry
LENGTH: Medium: 91 lines
RANDY FARMER is an innocent-looking young man who reminds me of those Hari Krishna youths who used to hand out flowers in airline terminals.
Only 23, he lives in the Ghent section of Norfolk where, he says, he washes windows on high-rise buildings for a living.
Randy is clean-cut and very likable. Slender of build and soft-spoken, he wears glasses over eyes with a faraway look. He has the distracted air of someone who hears a woodland flute in the distance unheard by others.
Randy - who is funny without always intending to be - looks exactly like the sort of person stuff happens to. And, to hear him tell, stuff has.
``My problem is that I served in the Army during Desert Storm, but nobody believes it. And I can't get my benefits as a veteran of that war until they do,'' he said.
According to Randy, he entered the U.S. Army in June 1990, intending to make the service his career.
He finished his basic training at Fort Leonard Wood in Missouri and was into his third week of advanced training, learning to be a truck driver, when he was given a medical discharge from the Army.
``What was the reason for your discharge?'' I asked.
``I was a sleepwalker,'' he replied.
Randy said that he had been a sleepwalker as a child but didn't do it again until he got in the Army. He only did it after lights out, he explained.
``Where would you sleepwalk when you were in the Army?'' I asked.
``In the barracks mostly,'' he replied. ``Sometimes I'd be walking down a flight of stairs talking to myself. And once they found me outside.''
Sometimes he was awakened rather abruptly, he said. ``There was a sergeant who liked to wake me up by throwing a bucket of cold water on me,'' he recalled.
He said an Army doctor wrote him a letter saying that he could be a danger to his company in time of war. Then he received his medical discharge and was placed in the inactive reserve, he said.
After his discharge, he went to Massachusetts, intending to enroll in the Berkshire Institute for Christian Studies in Lenox, Mass.
He says he took a sales job in a sporting goods store while waiting for the new semester to begin at the institute. It was when things were heating up in the Gulf. Shortly after Iraq invaded Kuwait, he received a phone call from his mother in West Virginia saying a letter for him had been delivered by Western Union.
``When the war broke out, I told her the Army would probably call me up,'' he said. ``She thought I was joking, but I wasn't. When I asked her to read the letter to me over the phone, it said I was ordered to report to Fort Eustis in Virginia on Jan. 8, 1991.''
Randy said he was 18 at the time and actually wanted to go to war.
``I was very gung-ho and figured you answered your country when it called for you,'' he said.
And he hoped to remain in the service when Desert Storm was over, he claims. He mentioned that he thought it odd at the time that the Army wanted him to serve in a war if he was a sleepwalking threat to its security.
But he reported as ordered and was shipped to Saudi Arabia with the 24th Infantry Division, he claims. He was an infantry private who didn't see any real combat while marching across the desert. He'd see burning enemy tanks and stuff like that. But he was never shot at that he remembers.
Randy said he returned to Fort Stewart, Ga., and was given an honorable discharge from the Army in March 1991.
He says an officer told him he could go home, and that's what he did. ``I didn't get a paper saying I was honorably discharged or anything else. It was strange, because they asked me to hand in my clothing and other stuff, which I did. But they never asked for my bayonet, so I took it with me when I left.''
Since leaving the Army, Randy has decided he'd like to have the entitlements given to military persons who have served their country in a war zone, particularly GI Bill benefits for education.
``I kept expecting them to send me a letter stating the benefits I was supposed to get but never got one,'' he said.
He has sought proof of his military service from the Army for years without any luck, he says.
``I have friends who served with me that know I was in Desert Storm, but the military won't accept that as proof,'' he said.
He mentioned that Sen. Charles Robb's office has been trying to help but so far has only drawn blanks from military record centers.
Randy refuses to give up. A romanticist, he believes President Clinton will someday pin his good-conduct and foreign-duty medals on him - right after the Army apologizes for its ``terrible mistake.''
Right.
In the meantime, Randy, while you're washing windows up there on the 14th floor, I'd keep a close eye on those safety harness connections. ILLUSTRATION: Randy Farmer says the Army discharged him twice.
by CNB