TheBakersfieldCalifornian.com

By the time four young Bakersfield Marines presented the colors officially opening the 13th annual Kern County Veterans Stand Down just after 8 a.m. Thursday, Raymond Price, a 20-year Navy veteran, had been working for hours.

"I've been out here since 4:30, 5 o'clock," he said, taking a break from scrubbing industrial-sized pots formerly filled with thick sausage gravy.

Price, whose hat proclaimed him a life member of Veterans of Foreign Wars Post 97, was one of more than 300 veterans who came to Stramler Park for the event -- both to volunteer and to receive dozens of on-site and referral services available to local vets in need.

"I feel right blessed," he said. "I went from one job to another without skipping a paycheck, so this is my way of giving back."

To "stand down" in military terms means to relax at a safe base camp area between bouts of combat.

In 1988, a group of Vietnam veterans in San Diego adapted the concept to civilian life, hoping to reach homeless servicemen and women.

Since then, Stand Down events have popped up around the country. In 1998, Kern County Veterans Services Department Director Chuck Bikakis brought the idea home to Bakersfield.

"We patterned ours initially off those that I had visited (in Fresno and Long Beach)," he said in the days leading up to the event.

Though the format of Kern's Stand Down has shifted over the years (from a three-day event to its present single-day incarnation) its core mission has remained the same: give struggling veterans an opportunity to rest and provide access to health, housing, counseling and legal services that will help them get back on their feet.

This year, California Veterans Assistance Foundation President Debbie Johnson organized the event, taking up the torch from Bikakis.

CVAF Operations Director Heather Kimmel said 40 service providers set up shop at the event, and as of an unofficial count at the end of the day, 326 veterans had been served.

According to Bikakis, the event had seen its largest turnout in 2009 with more than 400 veterans.

Kimmel said other years have seen significantly lower numbers, so this year was "a huge success."

Thursday morning, veterans and friends sat at picnic tables chowing down biscuits and eggs smothered in the aforementioned gravy, stylists from Lyle's College of Beauty gave haircuts and in the corner opposite, a khaki tent housed a gallery of pictures honoring some of the area's killed or missing soldiers.

Representatives from the Vet Center on Golden State Avenue, which opened earlier this year, spoke to men who meandered over about counseling the center offers. At a booth across the park, veterans sat down for massages.

At a table advertising the Great Spirit Lodge, a facility that serves women veterans, house mom Connie Toledo passed out candy and Gatorade.

Jose Salazar, an airborne ranger in the Army during Vietnam, said the service he needed most was the health clinic.

"I drink too much -- depression problems," he said.

Salazar said it was his third year at the Stand Down.

"They're real helpful," he said.

Elizabeth Herrera, a representative of Clinica Sierra Vista, said their mobile care unit was providing free HIV testing on-site, as well as referrals to substance abuse treatment programs or other programs.

But Salazar, who earned a Bronze Star for something he couldn't talk about, said he keeps in mind the difficult experiences that have made him who he is today -- for better or worse.

"Combat's combat," he said. "Somebody's gotta go down. You can't forget it. You've got to remember your brothers."