As veterans we see the empty places in our ranks where friends once stood. We see shadows when we remember something funny with them and start to laugh realizing only you will be laughing. And we look across the table or the bar stool next to you and realize that it’s filled with another you don’t recognize because your brother hasn’t been there for a while.

Continue reading →

I’m sitting here watching a documentary about the Vietnam War. It is about to bring me to tears. I look at these 18, 19, and 20 year old boys who have just graduated from high school, and they are so full of pride and love for their country that they are more than willing to go half-way around the world to somewhere they have never even heard of to keep America from falling to the evils of Communism.

These young boys knew about the atrocities that Communist countries had committed throughout the years because they were taught actual history in school by real teachers, which is a lot more than I can say about our education system of today. Continue reading →

Willie Dimes has a good heart. That much is now obvious. Because he sent us on a journey that covered 1,000 miles and 40 years to return a pair of priceless medals to their rightful owner.

A few weeks ago, he called WFAA for help. Continue reading →

Archie,

I was in ‘Nam in ’68 … one night we were dancing to Tighten Up.. Some of the guys.. next day we lost 4 of my squad.. ambush.. we fought all day and night.. but I always remember that night and day. One minute we were back in the world… hours later some of us had left it behind and died at 20. I didn’t know I had PTSD ’til maybe 15 years later.. I was driving with my wife and Tighten Up came on the radio… all of a sudden I thought of that night… the guys dancing – then losing them the next day and my eyes swelled up with tears because the memory of them was so strong.

We were with Charlie Co. 2/506th 101st Airborne Div. We were the 1st Platoon. This song carries a lot of weight with me Brother.. … you got hit too. Yeah man me too. ~ Pop Dada

I served with Delta Company 1 – 9 from Oct 1965 to 23 Feb 1966. It was almost an every day occurrence with someone being wounded or killed. We went over the side of the ship into a landing craft to make a beach landing at Chu Lai, Vietnam on 12 May 1965 with Lima Company 3 – 3 at age 17. I was later transferred to Da Nang in Oct 1965 Continue reading →

Sorry – my ass!

I was young and was watching TV in the mid to late 70’s and Jane Fonda came on the TV and my dad happen to walk by in the living room and I heard the words “Traitorous fucking Bitch ” as my dad continued to the bedroom. I was very young but smart enough not to ask my dad what all that was about. My Dad did 2 tours in Vietnam and lost friends over there and he was really bitter about how things turned out after the “Peace with Honor”. I finally asked my Dad in the early 80’s right after Jane Fonda “workout Craze”, when I heard him muttering something really ugly ..something about burning in hell with the devil’s pitchfork jammed up her…….Well you get the picture. I asked him and he took a deep breath and explained what the deal was. He knew that I knew a lot of history so I knew a lot of background and would grasp the particulars of what he said. Since then, I and many people my age have said the same thing, talk about generational hate. ~ Mr. Garabaldi Continue reading →

Retired Navy chaplain Ray W. Stubbe leaned over his diary and ran his finger to the entry for Feb. 23, 1968, the 34th day of the Vietnam War’s siege of Khe Sanh and the day the bunker was hit.

The small, sandbag fortress was on the perimeter. He had spent the night there three weeks before, as a half-dozen nervous young Marines sat under a single lightbulb, making coffee in a ration tin and playing a recording of “I Heard It Through the Grapevine” over and over.

Now the bunker had been smashed with some of those Marines inside, and Stubbe, then 29, a bespectacled Lutheran minister, rushed from a nearby medical shelter to help… Continue reading →

American soldiers returning home from Vietnam often faced scorn as the war they had fought in became increasingly unpopular.

I had gotten this article from “CherrieWriters”, It was one of the sites I get regular emails from. The site is full of information about Vietnam. I found the site years ago when I was researching the A-7 strikes near Hanoi if memory servers. This article means something to me because I remember the treatment my Dad got when he came home from his 2nd tour in Vietnam and it infuriated me, I was too young to really remember his first tour. How could the people blame the G.I’s for the war, they had to go when their government sent them. Going to Canada was a non-starter for most of the draftee’s, “only cowards and cocksuckers ran to Canada” was the prevailing theme. Then the way they were crapped on after they returned, from the people on the streets to the VA and the government. I recall the sentiment during Desert Storm that we were massively supported by the people on the street to Hollywood celebrities. It was almost surreal compared to the treatment my Dad and his generation got. I am glad that we as a society has matured, even during the unpopularity of the Iraq war most people didn’t blame the G.I. although there were a few asshats here and there. ~ Mr. Garabaldi

Twenty-one-year-old Steven A. Wowwk arrived as an infantryman in the Army’s First Cavalry Division in Cam Ranh Bay, Vietnam in early January 1969 to fight in an escalating and increasingly unwinnable war. By June, Wowwk had been wounded twice – the second time seriously – and was sent back to the United States for treatment at Boston’s Chelsea Naval Hospital.

It was after returning to the U.S. and while en route to the hospital that Wowwk first encountered hostility as a veteran. Continue reading →

Now hiring signs everywhere. My feelings get hurt because of your free speech, ban all guns, legalize drugs, single parenthood is cool. I deserve free everything.

Class of 1970. Boeing lays off 70,000 in Puget Sound, Gas doubled to 50 cents, no jobs, and your headed to Viet Nam.

The 1970s were a time of turmoil in the United States, beginning with the civil rights movement which set the standards for practices by the anti-war movement. The 1969 draft lottery only encouraged resentment of the Vietnam War and the draft. Continue reading →

The mere mention of her name will bring many to anger. There are first hand stories and pictures of her cavorting with the enemy.

What she did is Treason in its purest form. And yet because she came from Hollywood she gets preferential treatment.

One of the defining moments of anti American hypocrisy by the liberals in this country. She deserves the “honor” of a trial and the most severe punishment the law allows.

Barbara Walters writes:

Unfortunately, many have forgotten and still countless others have never known how Ms. Fonda betrayed not only the idea of our country, but specific men who served and sacrificed during the Vietnam War. Continue reading →

The fiftieth reunion of three guys who served in the ‘Nam together has come to a conclusion. Out time on this Earth is nearing it’s end. ~ Ed.

Put up such a fight in captivity, Viet Cong executed him out of frustration. He was last heard singing “God Bless America”… later awarded the Medal of Honor

Captain Humbert Roque Versace (July 2, 1937 – September 26, 1965), affectionately called “Rocky,” was an officer of the United States Army.

He went on to receive the Medal of Honor – the greatest military decoration of the United States – for the heroic actions he undertook as a prisoner of war in the Vietnam War. Puerto Rican-Italian by descent, he was the first member of the U.S. Army to have ever received such a distinction.

Born on July 2, 1937, in Honolulu, Hawaii, Versace was the eldest of five children. Versace’s father was Colonel Humbert Joseph Versace (1911–1972), and his mother was Marie Teresa Ríos (1917–1999) – who has authored three books, which includes the popular work Fifteenth Pelican, on which the 1960s Sally Field-starrer The Flying Nun was based. Having grown up in Alexandria, Virginia, Versace attended Gonzaga College High School in Washington, D.C. during his freshman and sophomore years, Frankfurt American High School in his junior year, and after graduating from Norfolk Catholic High School in his senior year, enrolled in the Armed Forces from Norfolk in Virginia. Continue reading →

U.S. Army Huey helicopter spraying Agent Orange over Vietnamese agricultural land.

During the Vietnam War, the United States military sprayed over twenty million gallons of herbicide Agent Orange on the trees and vegetation in Vietnam. The idea was to remove the forest cover that the enemy combatants were hiding behind and to destroy their crops, which would make it more difficult for them to feed themselves. Continue reading →

They Sacrificed Their Lives For All But Died Homeless

Editor’s NOTE: Back in my early days of broadcasting out of Scottsdale, AZ – I was privileged to interview the author on a number of occasions… and today (9/29/19) marks 601 consecutive Rallies – and many never made it home. ~ Ed.

Steve Palmer, 88-year old World War II Veteran of the U.S. Navy

Fellow Veterans and Friends of Veterans,
The Old Veterans Guard cordially invites you to attend our 600th consecutive Sunday Rally to “Save Our Veterans Land” and “Bring Our Homeless Veterans HOME.”

While our Sunday gathering is a peaceful and non-violent protest against the Los Angeles VA’s illegal use of Veterans land and the inhumane treatment of war-injured homeless Veterans, the most corrupt VA in the nation has been anything but civil, honest, peaceful and non-violent. Continue reading →