“I produce and create A Voice. It’s like The Voice, but it is on a club-level venue. We are in season three. Our winners go to The Voice to audition and we personally take them there. I served in Vietnam on the 35th tactical fighter wing with the Air Force. We recorded more early combat kills over Vietnam than any other fighter squad. We provided air support over many Army and Marine corp on the ground. Our air bases were in Thailand and I didn’t see much combat in the country. I was blessed to always be in the sky. It was routine, it was a job that we did each day. We were nervous every time we took to the sky even if we pretended to be cool, calm and collected. There is little traffic in the cockpit. You hear the breathing and the heartbeat go up when the alarm goes off, but it was a job with bosses and subordinates. The only difference in a civilian job is you usually don’t worry about dying that day. I went back home to California. As a veteran, I have been shown more respect in the last 5-10 years than we were during the Vietnam War. War was bloody and heinous with terrible acts before Vietnam, but media coverage made Vietnam different. People watched it from their living rooms. We didn’t come home to warmth. We came home to empty airports and people calling us murderers and baby killers. Our job wasn’t any different than World War I. 9-11 turned around people’s perception of veterans and this country has gripped that we were doing the job we were ordered to do. The reception our troops get now is so much better. Coming home is now a celebration. We have bills we have to pay and family to care for. We are separated from our family, sometimes over a year at a time and we still have to maintain the family attitude. You can’t be at dinner for 18 months or you just had a child. There is a lot of pain and worry that most people don’t consider. Many people come back OK and many people don’t. Some come home to Dear John letters and emptiness, the person they held on to back home for is gone. I think every high school student should serve basic training for 6-8 months of military duty. It teaches work, loyalty and chain of command. We are missing courtesy today.”
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Visit the Wall of Remembrance this weekend at the USS ALABAMA Battleship Memorial Park. It is a replica of the Vietnam Memorial. It is a good place to meet veterans and hear their stories and to remember the men who died in the Vietnam War.