Thank you for the ping. Somehow I missed The Dark, but I’ll be reading that later. Yes, by all means write it all down now before you begin to forget.
I’m also that age (born in ‘48). Me and my best buddy, Gary, decided to join up in 1967, he the Marines and me the Army.
I got a few letters from him from Vietnam while I was stationed in Germany. I could tell he was scared and I was worried for him. Then the letters stopped.
About a year later, I got another letter from him saying he had been shot in the chest while he was in Vietnam and that his esophagus had been partly destroyed and they had to replace part of it with a plastic (iirc) piece.
After spending almost a year in the big Naval hospital near the Great Lakes, they gave him a medical discharge and sent him home. But he kept getting constant infections and spent the rest of his life (about ten years) in and out of hospital. He’s not on the Wall and I always felt that was unfair. Getting shot in Vietnam is what killed him. I’ve always wondered how many others died from their injuries, like he did, years later?
Anyway, I lost a cousin, two good friends (including Gary), and a couple of acquaintances from my old high school days, not to mention at least one Army buddy who was sent there and died. I was never sent there, so I don’t know exactly what you went through, but I know it was bad. So I am saluting you, my friend. Thanks for writing this down, and I’m glad you made it out okay in one piece!
I didn't exactly make it back in one piece:50 Years Ago Today
But I was able to recover and spent another 24 years after that in the Corps. All the best to you, Buddy.