This is a post about veterans.

Whatta you want to know for?

There are a few here on the forum. Why do you ask?

Me - USN and my wife, 28 years with the CIA.

Navy - almost fought the battle of the Cuban Missile Crisis.

Vietnam – Oct 68 - Dec 69

Southeast US, ending with two years in Germany. No excitement.

You were there for the TET offensive?

18 months compulsory military service in the German navy (07.69 -12.70). Then mobility reserve until 1981 (four-week military exercises as navigator every year).

Just after it.

I actually forgot the best part: 1983 training for motorboat and sailboat drivers. (When I had my licence changed to civilian, I was able to steer motorboats with up to 75 passengers)
In 1983 and 1984 I took part in the cutter regatta during Kiel Week.

They started sending draftees to Vietnam nearing the end of my hitch. It was close to a year after I was released from active duty before the McKean (my ship) saw duty over there. My oldest brothers were drafted during the war and one enlisted. Roger was valuable for building platforms and stayed at Fort Hood. Sam said he would not fight in someone else's war. He spent three months in Leavenworth. Jack was stationed aboard the Ben Franklin, nuke sub. But his swelled head and active mouth got him on the bad side of his immediate superiors. When they vowed to give him all the **** details he opted for a general discharge and was released. I left active duty believing I owed it to my country to enlist in the army. But the literature I read once on the outside pursueded me to instead protest the war. I am protesting it still sixty years later.

THE MELALEUCA TREES
“Can you smell them Melaleuca trees?” Were the last words I heard him say
As I nursed him in the rice field where his shattered body lay
One leg was blown to smithereens the other smashed beyond repair
As the choppers came in fast and low, thank god the yanks were there

We were caught out in the open, the gooks had got behind our lines
I’d just seen me mate blown skywards when he’d stepped upon that mine
I nursed him to protect him then a bullet smashed me jaw
The chopper that had rescued us was the last thing me old mate saw.

His mother was indigenous and proud of their birth right
Though his father died when he was young he weren’t ashamed that he was white
His mother called him ---- ‘ little Jabiru’---- A native stork from ‘round our creeks
And he said he learned to hunt and fish by watching how they used their beaks.

Black and white are all their feathers, their legs are brilliant red
And yellow as the mid-day sun are eyes that brightened their black head
And black was the color of his skin, the red and yellow was his land
And proud was he of the feathers white, the color of his old man

It was the black, the red, and the yellow, that we painted on a rag
And placed it on the coffin beside his own Australian flag
And now he’s gone forever, to take him was a sin
But when I smell the Melaleuca trees, then I’ll remember him

For when the funeral was all over, I took the ashes that was he
And put them ‘neath the sapling of a Melaleuca tree
Now his spirit soars forever outside the cities push
Upon the Melaleuca’s perfumed breath In the great Australian bush

The Melaleucas spread their perfumed scent upon the morning breeze
And all the native birds and insects gather there among the trees
Sipping nectar sweet as honey, from the blossoms that abound
Around our rivers and our swamp lands, my Jabiru’s old hunting grounds….. The A nointed.

Just to avoid confusion, if any, I am not the 'Roger' he is referring to.

I love you like a brother, Roger, but the Roger in my post is my brother by parentage. He died in 1969.

Well, thank you very much, Edgar.

USAF from ‘59 to ‘79. The closest I came to Vietnam was a temporary duty deployment to Guam when we took the first squadron of B-52s which had been modified to use conventional weapons. That was in early ‘65. Then two more 2 year Guam assignments ‘67-‘69 and ‘74-‘76. It was in ‘75 that Saigon fell and Guam became the processing center for Vietnam refugees during [Operation New Life

US Army, 1961-1964

That makes us pretty contemporary. 1962 to 1967 army if I didn't mention it. Actually, I was flying back to the states while Israel was involved in it's six day war.