|
Ron Pasko says of The Vietnam Veterans Memorial: “It’s
like a black magnet.” Like so many others, the vice
president of VVA Chapter 209 in Chicago cannot explain its
power. He just knows he feels it. The Wall draws him in.
“It has the same effect on the guys in our organization,
and it has the same effect on me,” he said. “I
have no idea what it is, but I always want to go there.”
On Saturday, November 10, VVA will sponsor a huge parade
on the National Mall marking the 25th anniversary of the
dedication of The Wall. The event is expected to bring hundreds
of thousands of Vietnam veterans, their families, and supporters
to Washington in what is expected to be a seminal event in
the history of the Vietnam veterans movement. [read
complete article ]
The city of Springfield, Illinois, rolled out the red carpet
figuratively and literally for VVA members and their guests
at the 13th biennial National Convention July 18-22. “I
don’t believe we’ve had a friendlier, warmer
reception anywhere,” said VVA President John Rowan. “The
entire downtown opened their arms up for us. It was a real
kick to see ‘Welcome VVA’ signs in just about
every business establishment, ‘Welcome to Springfield
VVA’ buttons everywhere, and just plain friendliness
from just about everyone you met. The city even renamed the
street in front of the hotel ‘Vietnam Vets Avenue’ for
the week we were in town. Not to mention the actual red carpet
they rolled out for us as we entered the Convention Center
for the Awards Banquet Saturday night.” [read
complete article]
In the 1960s, Ernie Rivers taught Navy flight students at
the Pensacola Naval Air Station how to live off the land
if their plane was downed. He was the officer in charge of
the survival unit, overseeing 30 to 35 instructors, who taught
more than 100 men a week how to survive with only a compass,
map, and a hunting knife. Every week groups of students would
camp for three days, using different sites on Eglin Air Force
Base Reservation in Florida.
When the winds and clouds were right, Rivers and his men
would watch planes pass overhead, clouds of spray coming
from them. Several times he and his men were sprayed. “I’d
say, ‘At least we don’t have to use bug repellant,’” he
noted, laughing, during an interview. That was a big plus,
they thought, for them as well as Army Rangers who were also
training out in the bayous of the Florida panhandle, where
mosquitoes and other bugs could make life miserable.
[read
complete article]
Two 20-year-old guys from The Bronx, Bill Nelson and John
Ward, enlisted in the U.S. Army in February of 1969 on
the buddy system. Why? “We had a friend, a Marine,
who was killed in Vietnam, and we thought that in a time
of war—as crazy as it sounds—we should answer
the call,” Nelson explained in a recent interview. “John
came to me and it was his idea, and I said, ‘You’re
right,’ and so we enlisted. In hindsight, you could
say it was crazy to do it, but that’s what we did.
We were thinking that we probably would go to Vietnam.”
Nelson and Ward took the enlistment oath at the AFEES Station
on Whitehall Street in New York City, then got on a train
to Columbia, South Carolina, where the buddies went through
Basic Training together at Fort Jackson. Both men went 11B40,
light weapons infantry, and took Infantry AIT together at
Jackson. After they completed AIT, in June of 1969, the buddies
received the orders they fully expected: to go to Vietnam
together. [read
complete article]
Retirement didn’t sit well with Kevin Draper. He already
had gotten more than a taste of enforced inactivity in his
long fight with esophageal cancer, an ailment he traces back
to his Navy days working with Agent Orange and asbestos off
the Vietnamese coast. When he finally was forced to sell
his Waco turbocharger business, Draper found himself at home
only a day or so before he knew doing nothing all day just
wasn’t going to work. Life was too slow. When he was
finally able to hold a wrench in his hand again, the antidote
to life in the slow lane seemed obvious. Speed.
[read
complete article]
|
fWar.jpg){kind=small}
