In a dimly lit and narrow room at the Youth Advocate Resource Network (YARN) in Mayflower, Roger Evans took out his cellphone.
After flipping through text messages, he found what he was looking for.
It was a photo of the DD 214 for Master Sgt. (Ret.) Alvin Gill, 93, of Conway.
A DD 214 (the DD stands for Department of Defense), is the discharge form for members of the military.
It "tells about your character of service," Evans explained. "It details where you've been, the things you've done.
"But it also entitles you to the benefits. From the Veterans Administration, your burial, things like that."
The document, produced when Gill was discharged from the U.S. Army Reserves in 1973, shows how many years of service he had, his Social Security number, his date of birth, where he went into the service, his date of entry into it and more.
It's a complete summary of 20 years of military service, spanning from the Korean War to Vietnam.
Well, almost.
This DD 214 doesn't indicate what theaters of war Gill saw action in.
That's not all that was missing.
"This is what's kind of amazing here," says Evans, as he points to a box at the bottom of the page.
Section 24, the box meant for decorations, medals, badges and commendations earned during Gill's service.
"None," Evans says.
The box is empty.
"In my lifetime it's not common," says Evans, who retired from the military last year with the rank of lieutenant colonel.
But Gill's service era came long before Evans', in the days before digital record keeping.
Gill's DD 214 shows no mention of Gill being the first African American to enroll and complete helicopter pilot training at Camp Wolters in Mineral Wells, Texas, in 1959.
"He should have been a warrant officer or an officer upon completion of this ... but for some reason it wasn't done," Evans said.
And there was no indication of what brought between 20 and 30 people to the small building in Mayflower on a cloudy Thursday.
The numerous medals he earned in 22 years of service, but never received.
. . .
"It's 10 o'clock and we like to be on time!"
It wasn't quite 10, but you can excuse Berthenia Gill's enthusiasm as she got the room's attention.
After a 50-year wait, her husband's moment had finally arrived.
Born Oct. 1, 1930, on a plantation west of Mayflower, Alvin Gill enlisted in the U.S. Army in 1951 and served until 1973.
Though the Section 24 box of his DD 214 was empty, the shadow box formally presented to him Thursday by U.S. Rep. French Hill properly showed his accomplishments from 22 years of service.
Among the 12 distinct awards in the shadow box:
The Silver Star (awarded for "gallantry" in action against the enemy)
The Soldier's Medal (highest honor one can receive for an act of valor in a non-combat situation)
The Bronze Star with a "V" device (awarded for heroic achievement. The "V" device is for acts of valor/heroism in combat)
U.S. Army Combat Infantry Badge (Recipient was present and under hostile fire in ground combat with the enemy)
Meritorious Unit Commendation (valorous achievement in combat or non-combat)
Presidential Unit Citation (awarded to units for extraordinary heroism against an armed enemy)
The family received the awards in the mail three weeks ago.
"That was an exciting day for me, because it hasn't been easy to get them," says Berthenia Gill.
The struggle to obtain the medals started 12 years ago.
Alvin shared stories of his accomplishments with his wife, but she had no idea whether she could believe him.
"He talked about what he had done, that he was the first applicant to go through the helicopter pilot school," Berthenia says. "And when I went after the DD 214, there was nothing there. So I'm thinking that, 'How do you know? How will I ever known that this is a truth?'
"I don't take first answers for anything. So he said, 'I don't know.'"
After other avenues failed to verify Alvin's war record, about four years ago Berthenia enlisted the help of Hill.
"I've watched Congressman Hill, how he maneuvers and gets people answers to their questions and helps them if he can," Berthenia said. "Something pushed me in his direction."
Hill recalled the Gill family reached out to his office for help "literally as the pandemic started back in March of 2020."
"This is not an unusual request," Hill said. "Somehow decades later, medals are lost or never awarded or never found. It's just a victim of time."
The process of verifying a service member's record years after the fact can be "time consuming," Hill said.
It involves researching the turned-in citation from the original after action report, where the soldier remembers a firefight and a commanding officer submitting a recommendation for a commendation.
"Sometimes the dots are not connected," Hill said.
While Hill noted that a DD 214 is the "definitive record of somebody's service," he added that they're "often wrong. ... sometimes it requires additional work. This was one of those cases."
Among the "sleuthing" that can be part of the process is going through letters sent home to family, diaries and photos taken with a particular unit.
"When we're successful in doing one of these, particularly when the family members are unaware of their family's service member's valor, it's always inspirational," Hill said.
. . .
"Thank you, thank you, thank you, all," Alvin Gill said when called on to say something after Hill's official presentation of the shadow box of awards.
After the ceremony, Alvin said it was an "outstanding blessing to be recognized."
Alvin's moment of recognition came in a time of uncertainty.
Around the time Berthenia and her family began their pursuit of the medals, Alvin began experiencing early-onset dementia.
"It's a struggle, because he's fast paced to becoming really affected by Alzheimer's," Berthenia said. "I think if you give him something that he remembers, this was powerful in his memory bank. So it brought that out.
"Now when we leave here today, I don't know where it's going to go. That's where we are.
"So this was received in time to give us a moment of happiness."