This is a topic that is near & dear to my heart. Not from personal experience (fortunately) but simply because the purpose speaks to me. I first learned of this organization after watching a short lived and mostly forgotten (no pun intended) tv show called “The Forgotten”. It starred Christian Slater & was in conjunction with the ever popular Jerry Bruckheimer. Check out this Youtube clip with Christian & Jerry discussing this show. At the conclusion of each episode, it mentions Namus.gov (get it? name us? stands for “NAtional Missing and Unidentifed persons System) but they either don’t or no longer work with civilians. Instead they refer civilians to the Doe Network. Once I knew I would be retiring, this was something I decided I wanted to devote my time to. So I filled out an application, got it notarized (required), submitted it (July) & heard nothing for a few weeks. I resubmitted again & heard nothing. So I chalk it up to them not signing up new volunteers. And since they are all volunteers, it’s hard to chastise them for not putting this info on their website. So…life goes on. Fast forward about four months (today!) and I get an email that someone has (finally) been reviewing all the applicants & wanted to know if I was still interested. (HELL YES!!!)
Now that I’ve told you all that, let me tell you what they do, which may explain why I’m so passionate about this organization. If you viewed the Youtube video I linked to above, you already have an idea. However, the tv show is (as per usual) a bit more glamorous than real life, since I don’t think the Doe Network volunteers actually are doing crime solving. If you skipped the video, in a nutshell, there are two, massive databases utilized by law enforcement. (Actually, I’m sure there are more – but for this purpose, I’m only concerned about two!) One database has listings of missing people. The other database has listings of unidentified bodies. Due to the enormity of trying to match up the two (an unidentified body with a missing person report), once a case starts to go cold, this task is outsourced to civilian volunteers. Fortunately, one does not deal directly with gross things (I nearly passed out when I got my ears pierced). If/when the civilian volunteers think they may have found a match, it’s passed along to the proper authorities, so they can follow up on it. I’m not really sure what’s all involved. But I think this is something I could do well and (hopefully) help some families find closure.
The interesting thing is that when I mentioned this to some of my friends, I found that someone I know well has a missing family member. I asked about it but the person was near tears & could not talk about it. So of course, it would be golden if I were able to help my friend find their missing family member.
Anyway, I am very excited about this. I hope my application is approved & that I’m able to join this organization. Wish me luck!!!