FAYETTEVILLE, N.C. (AP) — Federal officials have discovered a North Carolina veteran isn't dead yet. 
 
 The Fayetteville Observer reported that 81-year-old Charles Covell of Fayetteville was surprised to learn that he had been declared dead by the Veterans Affairs Department last month. 
 
 Covell's wife realized something was wrong when a monthly disabilities payment was not deposited in their account. They learned a death certificate for a Charles Covell was filed in January. 
 
 Covell spent 12 years in the Army, serving with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. 
 
 A spokeswoman from U.S. Rep. Richard Hudson's office said Tuesday the VA has said the mistake had been corrected. 
 
 A VA spokesman said the department has an accuracy rate of 99.8 percent in halting payments to those who die. 
 
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 Information from: The Fayetteville Observer, http://www.fayobserver.com ||||| Buy Photo Roger Watson, left, and David Brown have been neighbors in Berkley for 18 years, but didn’t realize until recently that they were friends in the Vietnam War, drafted on the same day, trained in the same places and served in the same company. (Photo: Ryan Garza Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo 
 
 Dave Brown had scoured the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington looking for his Army basic training buddy Roger Watson's name. 
 
 While in Vietnam in 1968, Brown ran into someone from Watson's company and heard that his friend had been injured. 
 
 The word was true — Watson was shot March 8, 1968, seven months into his tour, losing a kidney and 3 feet of small intestine and suffering damage to his liver. 
 
 But Brown never found out if his friend lived or died. 
 
 The two men — who came from the same northwest Detroit neighborhood, were drafted on the same day in 1966, trained together at Ft. Hood in Texas, served in the 9th Infantry and were combat engineer demolition specialists — never saw or heard from each other again. 
 
 Until right before Halloween this year. 
 
 That's when the two men — more than 40 years older than the last time they saw each other as young soldiers in training — walked across their kitty-corner backyards in Berkley and met at the chain-link fence. 
 
 For 18 years, the two Oakland County men had lived nearly back to back and didn't even know it. 
 
 Weeks after reuniting, they still can't believe it. 
 
 Vietnam vets and long-lost friends David Brown and Roger Watson of Berkley found out they have been neighbors for 18 years. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press 
 
 "I was absolutely delighted," Brown, 68, a retired surveyor, said of learning about Watson, grateful his friend survived. "I wondered about you for 40 years." 
 
 "I always wondered what happened to you," Watson, 67, a retired supervisor with the Michigan Department of Corrections, told Brown as the two sat in Watson's home recently, sipping coffee, sharing war stories and telling their amazing reunion story. 
 
 That story is a story in itself. 
 
 And it's thanks to Brown's wife, Peggy, who has been neighborly with Watson because of their common interest in birds. 
 
 Peggy Brown was taking a walk one day when she noticed the Purple Heart license plate on Watson's car and mentioned it to her husband. On another occasion, she noticed the 9th Infantry Vietnam Veterans cap in the rear window of the car. 
 
 Then, on Oct. 27, the revelation happened — during e-mail exchanges between her and Watson that began about a picture of a hawk. 
 
 "On a different subject my husband Dave was in the ninth infantry 15th combat engineers' 1967-1968 Vietnam. Wondering if you were there at that time. … I saw that you were in the ninth," she wrote Watson. 
 
 The back-and-forth e-mails that followed unraveled answers to questions pondered by both men for four decades. 
 
 "Small World!!!!!!" and "Wow !!!!" and questions, such as whether Watson's nickname was Bunny (it wasn't) and if Dave Brown's hair was blond (it was), were sprinkled through the evolving exchanges. 
 
 "I think we may have volunteered together," Watson wrote Peggy Brown. "Please don't believe any stories he may tell about me! Also let him know I've changed a lot since basic." 
 
 After looking at photos of the men as soldiers via e-mail that day, Peggy Brown wrote: "This has to be coincidence of the century. Dave cannot believe all this and we've been here for 18 years in Berkley. What are the odds?" 
 
 That's been the reaction of the men, their wives and the friends they've told since the long-lost Army buddies found each other again. 
 
 "It takes one little piece of information to put the whole thing together," said Watson's wife, Edie. 
 
 Roger Watson said he saw only glimpses of his neighbor from a distance now and then through the years. 
 
 When the foliage is out, both couples said, it's impossible to see into each others' backyards. Roger Watson said he simply was friends with Peggy Brown "over the fence" as both of them fed the birds. 
 
 "I was almost shaken," Roger Watson said of learning his Army buddy was his neighbor. "This is almost too wild." 
 
 "This is incredible," Dave Brown said. "It's amazing. So much time has elapsed." 
 
 But to hear the men — now longtime husbands, fathers and grandfathers — talk recently, it was like no time had passed at all. 
 
 They recalled being drafted, training in Texas — running everywhere, cleaning the barracks and spit-shining shoes — and leaving for life-changing experiences in Vietnam while their hometown of Detroit was experiencing its own life-changing event in the 1967 riot. 
 
 Watson talked about when he was shot; Brown recalled the first body he encountered as a soldier. 
 
 The experiences are among many etched in the memories of both men — memories neither can shed, just like the smell of diesel or the sound of a helicopter. 
 
 Now, they have another memory — discovering each other. 
 
 "It's sort of amazing we've been neighbors this long," Watson said. 
 
 Brown agreed. 
 
 "It's just great to see him alive," he said. "It makes me happy." 
 
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– Federal officials have discovered a North Carolina veteran isn't dead yet. The Fayetteville Observer reported that 81-year-old Charles Covell of Fayetteville was surprised to learn that he had been declared dead by the Veterans Affairs Department last month. Covell's wife realized something was wrong when a monthly disabilities payment was not deposited in their account, and the couple then learned that a death certificate for a Charles Covell was filed in January. A spokeswoman from US Rep. Richard Hudson's office said Tuesday the VA has fixed the mistake, per the AP. Covell spent 12 years in the Army, serving with the 82nd Airborne Division and the 5th Special Forces Group at Fort Bragg. The Observer notes that this is not the first time Covell has been the victim of a red-tape gaffe over his service. The military tried to honor him for 1965 heroics on the battlefield in Vietnam, but the paperwork got lost for more than 40 years. Covell finally received his Bronze Star Medal for Valor in 2006.