How have you tried to reconnect to your former shipmates and have you had success?

They're not shipmates for me, PO2 Todd Voge, but I have re-connected with former colleagues from decades ago. I think you're on one of the best sites to do that. Have you searched for your unit or your ship in the search bar at the top of the RallyPoint window (on a PC)? I typed in USS, and there's a long list of ships. I have also found former friends and colleagues on Facebook.

The desire to re-connect with former friends and colleagues from the military is very strong. I'm sure that's part of the appeal of RallyPoint. I know the desire is strong because I visited Mannheim and wrote about it in a blog I was doing at that time. In that blog post I mentioned that Turley Barracks had been closed. Wow, I've had over 100 responses to that one post, and most of them are from people who used to be stationed at Turley Barracks. That's the power of the Internet. Here's the post, in case you're interested in seeing it:

http://anoldsoldiersview.blogspot.com/2009/05/mannheim.html

So since this post, I've been able to catch up with about 30 or so shipmates. We're planning a get-together (reunion sounds so funny when we've been chatting over Facebook and other media for a couple years now) in January in San Diego. Can't wait!