Stories of service that resonate. Stories that inspire. Stories that move us.

Many such stories are shared on America’s back porches, in living rooms and, on occasion, around campfires in the woods. Or they are not told at all, which speaks volumes about the impacts of war some veterans experienced.

Keith Smothers said the stories shared over the years by his father and father-in-law — both veterans — are what compelled him to join CalVet’s Equal Employment Opportunity team as an investigator in 2023. He saw it as more than just a great career move.

“I don’t feel like I’m going to work,” Smothers said. “I’m here for the veterans.”

As Veterans Day 2024 approaches, Smothers said working at CalVet is also his way of paying tribute to his 86-year-old Army veteran father, Ray Smothers; and to his decorated Korean and Vietnam War Navy veteran father-in-law, Commander Tommy Gatewood, who died in 2012.

Through their dedicated service and fortitude, these two family-member veterans inspired in Smothers a deep appreciation for those who have defended our nation and its Constitution.

His dad served in Army aviation in the 1950s. His unit sent to Italy to train Italian pilots to fly and maintain American-made helicopters. Ray Smothers suffered a back injury while performing maintenance work. He ended up in a veterans hospital in the Bay Area, where he had surgery that led to his discharge, and cut short what might otherwise have been a long military career.

He became a private investigator, and eventually opened an agency in Sacramento.

“I followed in his footsteps,” Keith Smothers said. They ran the agency together for more than two decades, during which time Keith met and married Amy Gatewood, now a school vice principal in Elk Grove, and they started a family. Her father, Tommy Gatewood, was a 20-year Navy aviator and commander who led a squadron that flew over 200 combat missions over North and South Vietnam in the mid- to late-1960s.

He also flew missions alongside the late John McCain (who was shot down during the Vietnam War, spent five and one-half years as a POW, and later became a U.S Senator).

Gatewood retired in 1972 after he oversaw the decommissioning of the Essex-class carrier USS Bon Homme Richard (CV 31). Smothers looked upon Gatewood like a second father, as an idol, and as a cherished friend.

“He was a true American patriot,” Smothers said.

Like so many others, Gatewood understood the impacts of war. And also, like other veterans, he kept much of what he experienced to himself.  But there were unspoken understandings.

From her time as a child living on numerous naval air bases, Amy’s sister, Maryanne, said the kids in the neighborhood knew what it meant when “the black car” pulled up in front of a home, an officer and chaplain getting out, and walking to the front door as bearers of bad news. “The black car” never stopped at their home, but they viscerally sympathized with other families in their neighborhood who experienced that loss.

Gatewood opened up to Smothers — if only a bit at a time — during their backpacking and fly-fishing trips into the Sierra and other remote places.

“He shared more with me than anyone else,” Smothers said. “We’d be literally in the middle of nowhere, where he loved to be, it was his safe space, and have these few moments, few and fleeting.”

Gatewood talked with Smothers about knowing that during the course of serving his country in the Korea and Vietnam wars, that innocent people died in them.

“He knew there were people you needed to target,” Smothers said. “And people you didn’t want to. They had to do some difficult things.”

 “He carried himself as a man of honor,” Smothers said. “I look to him to this day; and when I have to make a decision, I ask: ‘What would Tom do?’”

After retiring from the Navy in 1971, Tom took an aptitude test that suggested he had a future in sales. He wasn’t buying it, so he retook the test. Same result. He became a successful insurance agent in Sonora, in the Sierra foothills near the back country he loved.

Meanwhile, Smothers and his dad sold their investigation agency in 2009, when Ray Smothers retired. Ray still lives in Sacramento.

Keith Smothers worked for some international security companies before joining CalVet in 2023.

The veterans in his family life and the stories they told instilled in Smothers a deep level of respect which he brings to work each day.

The stories of service and sacrifice that Smothers feels privileged to learn via his work motivates him every day. He feels grateful for the opportunity to contribute to CalVet’s mission: ensuring that California veterans are the most protected, connected and respected veterans in the nation.

“I’m able to translate that to say, ‘Thank you,’” Smothers said. “I have no intentions or designs of going anywhere (career-wise) ever again.”

---

Would you like the opportunity to serve veterans in your work? Join the CalVet team! We are dedicated to ensuring that veterans from every era, along with their families, receive the state and federal benefits and services they have earned and deserve due to their selfless and honorable military service. See our current career opportunities at calcareers.ca.gov/CalVet.