Thank you for this veteran appreciation travel bug. What a nice thing to do. I’ll have to see if I can find a unit patch I can add to the chain.
I was a U.S. Army squad leader in a reconnaissance platoon in the central highlands in 1969, 70 & 71. I served in the 4th Infantry Division. I had a student deferment but gave it up and volunteered for the draft so that I could get my military service over before getting married and raising a family. The girl I was unofficially engaged to before going to Vietnam dumped me at the airport upon my return when she told me she was getting married to someone else that next week. That’s good, though, because soon after that I met my wife who is the love of my life. At the time of this posting we recently celebrated our 37th anniversary.
My happiest memory though, is that my mother wrote to me every day I was in Vietnam. Yes, that’s write. That is not a typo. She wrote to me every day. Out in the jungle we would only get ‘pony’ (mail) about every two weeks. Then I would get a whole bundle of mail, dated on the envelope flap so I could sort them before opening them, plus a ‘care package’ consisting of homemade cookies, brownies or some such thing. I do not know of anyone who got as much mail as I did. I was also very popular when it came time to opening our mail since my mother always sent enough to share with my whole platoon.