‘They’re just looking for help’

“This is what I do for a living; I interview people on the record,” said a calm Master Sgt. Christopher James Burgess. “Basically, what we do is complaint resolution. People come in and talk to us if they feel they’ve been wronged, restricted or reprised against. We look into the matters for them or refer them to an agency that can help them.”

As Superintendent of the Inspector General’s Office at the United States Air Force Warfare Center, Burgess acts as a filter for complaints ranging from payroll mishaps to concerns over rank and combat medals.

He helps guide soldiers through a bewildering maze of acronyms, pointing them in the direction of agencies like the Area Defense Council, which helps with criminal complaints, or the Military Equal Opportunity Program, which handles sexual harassment allegations.

“A lot of people are confused, and they’re just looking for help,” Burgess said. “Being able to see people walk through the door with an issue and being able to get it resolved from cradle to grave is one of the things I really enjoy about this (job).”

Burgess, an electrician by trade, worked with the 99th Civil Engineering Division until last October, when a complaint filed on someone else’s behalf nudged him in the direction of internal affairs.

It’s been almost 20 years since Burgess, a fourth-generation military man, joined up. He has done four overseas tours, including deployments in Iraq and Afghanistan.

It has been only six years since the Lowell, Mass., native has been stationed in Las Vegas, where he was placed after his 6-year-old son Logan was diagnosed with a rare metabolic disease.

“(Logan) was born, and he got really sick,” Burgess said, still with a hint of Boston brogue. “We got medevac-ed here and put on the (Exceptional Family Member Program), and they put us here because, unknown to a lot of people, Vegas has a really, really good medical and health care.

“(Military) benefits saved my kid’s life. We’re thankful for that every day.”

Jim Richardson also swears by support the military has offered his seven-member clan. So much so, he has come to think of his 2,400 National Guard Reserve peers and subordinates as an adopted branch of the Richardson family tree.

“It takes a village, the way the (National) Guard works,” the 49-year-old command sergeant major said. “My son’s in the Guard; my wife’s worked in (National Guard) Family Services — where we do tons of work with the American Legion, Disabled American Veterans and Veterans of Foreign Wars — and the guard works; it complements every one of those organizations.”

Nevada’s second-ranking non-commissioned officer, in charge of the state’s second largest bureaucracy, is a career military man.

Richardson finished boot camp in 1982, completed active duty in West Germany in 1989 and finished his only combat tour in 2010, bringing home every one of more than 700 soldiers deployed with him, plus about 50 Purple Hearts.

The Las Vegas native is proud of those combat accomplishments and proud of more than three decades spent in the National Guard Reserve. That has made it hard to leave.

“The National Guard is family,” Richardson said. “They’ve supported my family and my career for a very long time. I could retire now if I wanted to, but I love working with soldiers, love doing what I do and being an ambassador for the Guard.”

Above all, he’s happy to serve. Those who live in Richardson’s neighborhood already knew that.

“I have a 35-foot flagpole in my front yard,” he said. “No one’s going to miss my place on the Fourth of July.”

Contact Centennial and North Las Vegas View reporter James DeHaven at jdehaven@viewnews.com or 702-477-3839.