Reflections

In Vietnam—as in most wars with American involvement—singers, comedians, and bands often traveled to war zones to entertain the troops. These included performers from The Bob Hope Show, the multitalented Danny Kaye, and broadcaster and…

In the fall of 2000, I received a phone call from an unrecognized number with an unfamiliar area code and decided to answer.“Is this Tigerman?” asked a voice on the line. I thought for a second before answering. “Is this LT?” He knew he’d…

Andrew waited long enough to be born a North Carolinian. After weeks in an Extended Stay America in Jacksonville, North Carolina, our family finally got a move-in date for our tiny base house—and the belongings we’d long been parted from…

The C-130 bounced like a rollercoaster at a cheap traveling circus. I sat on the cargo netting bench seats surrounded by first-time jumpers and pretended to sleep.All I could think about—other than that one of these bastards was going to…

Jan. 23, 1968, was an exciting day for me. I had no idea just how exciting it would turn out to be.I’d recently returned from three weeks of leave in the US and was finishing up an 18-month tour in the Philippines that included several…

Enoch H. Kanaya was my sun-seeking neighbor who plucked red, ripe tomatoes off the vine in his sunny garden on our tree-lined streets in Chicago. He and his family—his wife, Carolyn, and their four daughters—moved into their modest brick…

My dad’s Navy service was nothing special. His single enlistment spanned from the end of the Eisenhower administration through that of John F. Kennedy. But in that time the Navy changed his life.In 1958, Merlin Chetlain left East Dubuque,…

I rode the third chopper in a daisy chain of five, each bird maybe 30 seconds behind the next. Clutching my M16 rifle in the left-side door gunner’s seat and surrounded by men cocooned in combat gear, I sat on a flak jacket in the vague…

My dad knew two things. He wanted to serve this country, and he wouldn’t live until his 40th birthday. In 2006, his last prophecy came true. He was 36.“On behalf of the president …” were the last words I remember hearing two uniformed…

I looked out the door of the Huey helicopter into the orange, yellow, and purple fan rays of the sunset over Southeast Asia. The air was cool up here—about 70 degrees compared to the 112-degree heat just 2,000 feet below us.It was June…