Gene Gitelson was the first person interviewed by Ann Medlock when she started asking friends and neighbors in New York, “Do you know people who are sticking their necks out for the common good?” Gitelson’s name came up so often, Medlock met with him at an Eastside ice cream shop, tape recorder in hand.

A successful businessman and a former combat platoon leader in Vietnam, Gitelson was concerned that many veterans of that war were not making the transition to civilian life. He started the New York Vietnam Veterans’ Leadership Project to match vets like himself with those who needed help getting their lives going stateside. Gitelson recruited reluctant vets as mentors by reminding them that they had resolved in combat never to leave anyone behind; they must not leave behind fellow veterans who were struggling to make it in the civilian world. He discovered in the process that the mentors got as much from the relationship as the mentees. Gitelson himself had taken years to be able to identify himself as a veteran of that war; he reported healing taking place on both sides of the equation.

Gene’s story went out from the Giraffe Project in a recording for radio stations voiced by actor Chuck Connors, best known as The Rifleman. NYVVLP’s trainings became the model for nation-wide programs not only for vets but also for people from all walks of life who needed to get their work lives on a successful track.

The photo is of Gitelson (above) and Russian Giraffe 001, Andrei Terentyev, whom Gitelson sought out when he was working in Moscow with veterans of the war in Afghanistan.

Gitelson served in the 8Os as Board Chair of the Giraffe Project. He is now an organizational trainer, working around the world with UN peacekeeping teams.