Helping out standing out at stand down

Helping out standing out at stand down
By Robert Jordan
Valley Times
Article Last Updated: 08/07/2008 11:29:58 PM PDT

PLEASANTON — Orlando Resendez walked around Thursday's East Bay Stand Down acting as the event's unofficial greeter.

Dressed in beige cargo pants, hiking boots, a green T-shirt and a black Marine Corps hat, Resendez, 44, said hello and asked everyone he encountered if they needed any help. He directed fellow volunteers to various tents and pointed wayward veterans to the right location.

Yet as helpful as Resendez is, when he needed help after leaving the Marines in 1996 he had a tough time finding it. Until, that is, he attended the North Bay Stand Down in 2005.

"At one point I was on top of the world and it was hard to ask for help," he said. "Only way I would ever ask is if I was homeless."

The Stand Down helped Resendez find housing and treatment for post-traumatic stress disorder that he had sought ever since he left the military.

Resendez returned the favor as one of 1,500 volunteers ranging from doctors to lawyers to other veterans who converge on the Alameda County Fairgrounds every other year to lend a hand to more than 400 veterans.
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