Read All About It!
Find out about SAF services in our Service to the Armed Forces: A Lifeline for Military Members and Their Families
brochure.
You will find a wide variety of military, social services, mental health, and related resources in our extensive Sonoma & Mendocino Counties Resource Directory for Military Members, Families and Veterans.
Sign up to take our free Coping with Deployment: Psychological First Aid for Military Families & Children, a class especially for for military service families to learn skills helpful when dealing with long deployments. This class is also useful to friends of military families, as well as health and mental heath workers, teachers, and others who provide direct support to military families.
The History of the American Red Cross and its Service to the Armed Forces
Clara Barton, known as the "Angel of the Battlefield," not only founded the American Red Cross, but also started the practice of writing to the families of the wounded soldiers she cared for during the Civil War. After the war, she became involved in tracing soliders' whereabouts.
Her work is continued today through the branch of the Red Cross known as Service to the Armed Forces (SAF).
Through our SAF units in every Red Cross chapter in the U.S. and on military bases around the world, the Red Cross annually transmits more than 1.4 million emergency messages to thousands soldiers and their families.
Each of our chapter's volunteer SAF caseworkers spends one shift a week covering our SAF line. The caseworkers interview the caller, and any health care providers or othes needed to verify the emergency situation (or, our favorite, the birth of a service member's baby!). The military often uses the SAF caseworker's information to determine whether emergency leave can be granted. SAF caseworkers also assist qualified active duty service members and veterans apply for emergency financial assistance from the military aid societies.
In 2007/08 our SAF volunteers supported our Armed Forces in 246 cases, transmitting emergency messages that could help service members obtain needed leave, and providing important information about ways to get further assistance.
Service to the Armed Forces is dedicated to:
