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gotta a letter at mail
call one day from my girl telling me that a couple of guys from my football team who went into the Marines were now at DongHa
with the third Marines....knew these guys all my life....
At the time A2/5 was on stand down at Camp Evans pulling perimeter
guard and waiting for a CO replacement ...Talked Sgt.
into letting me go and see them since we were just down the road
apiece......
Grabed a jeep and off I went....Got to the company area and a couple of Marines point me in the direction
of their hootches....get
to their hootches and another Marine tells me they are on a mission and not due back for a day
or so....
There was this one Marine
I met on Veterans Day at the VFW.......He was about 6"5"...shaved head....solid as a ....
brick house......in full uniform....and
he was an Officer but certainly no Gentleman.......He saw my First Cav patch...grabbed
me up and gave me a great big old
bear hug and said..."The
Cavs here.....our Guardian Angels...Welcome home brother..."
After I got out of his grasp
I asked him why he called us that??...
"because you guys always came out of the clouds and helped us when we needed it...you
were always there .......I never looked
at it like that before but he was right.....The Cav and the third Marines shared
more then AO's in Nam.........as did everyone else in that HellHole........
Growing up at the time I saw
alot of WWII and Korean vets greet each other with a handshake...a wink of the eye or a nod of the head.....Maybe it was the
pure bruatility of it all....in the jungles of Nam and in the streets of America....or maybe the cold blank stares seen in
the eyes of the American people upon our return....the fear...the alienation....I really don't know...but no matter where
you were in Nam or who you were with or what you did....those that went and answered the call of their country share something
well beyond a wink...a nod...well beyond words
Brothers.......Forever.......
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