Have you lost touch with a friend in the military, or a former buddy from your unit? Or perhaps you're looking for a family member currently deployed. The question comes up frequently and there several ways to search for your friends or family in the military.

If your looking for a family member or friend currently deployed, this can be pretty easy. While you may not know their exact location, for obvious reasons, you can find out where a soldier is stationed. When sending mail to your solider there are often administrative fees to get your mail through. You can find a list of addresses to send your mail along with prices via this article at Sgt. Moms.

You can also use the services online to find active duty members:
http://www.firstgov.gov/Topics/Locators.shtml

Finding a retired veteran can be much more difficult. Often times you only know bits and pieces of information about buddies you served with, like first name and home town. When soldiers come home they may change bases several times before they finally leave the army making it difficult to track them down.

There are several online registries (see list below) designed to make it easy to find your pals, but they all rely on these people registering themselves. The more information you know about the person your trying to find the easier it will be. As a last resort you may want to consider hiring a private detective. There are plenty of PI's available that specialize in finding former military personnel.

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