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An up close and personal interview with U.S. Marine Corps Veteran and Togetherweserved.com Member:
Cpl Edward C Burke U.S. Marine Corps (1966-1968)
PLEASE DESCRIBE WHO OR WHAT INFLUENCED YOUR DECISION TO JOIN THE MARINE CORPS?
When I was turning seventeen and jobless, my parents pushed me to enlist in the Air Force, to learn a trade they said. My friend Billy Thomas (TWS) had enlisted in the Marines but I was under pressure not to follow him in. I am ashamed to say, even today  that I was home five weeks after enlisting when I was washed out of boot comp.
I wasted the next few years making other mistakes that I didn't start to repair until I turned 21 when I spent 1965 working across the county with two friends, roofing, restaurant work and odd jobs in Miami, New Orleans, Houston and Carlsbad. It was also a time spent growing up and getting my act together. I took a high school equivalency correspondence course and then took a GED test when we were in Florida. ( I had only finished the 8th grade).
When I arrived in California in 1966 to join my parents, the war was reaching high body count levels and I followed the news coming out of Vietnam intensely. That got me thinking about the military and trying to make amends for my Air Force failure. Because of that experience I had an exempt draft status but thought that the Army would take me anyway. Well, yes and no. According to the Army Recruiter, the only way they could allow me to enlist was if I was able to change my Draft status from 1-Y (basically not subject to the draft) to 1-A. 1-Y was the penalty (or benefit) classification I had as a consequence of a life not well lived.
I petitioned the Draft Board for a classification change, and when they approved a change to 1-A, I headed back down to the Army to ask about a guarantee for Airborne and Medic. I only wanted to go for two years but was told the guarantee was for one or the other and was in return for a three year enlistment. Although I thought my history limited me to the Army, I decided to pass on their offer and go talk to the Marines to see if my 1-A carried any weight with them. The worst case scenario was to just wait until I was drafted.
 The Marine recruiter also thought that the 1-A effectively wiped out the Air Force black mark. He said there was no guarantees but I would likely wind up as a grunt on a 2-year enlistment. But, he said, the 2-year quota was filled and I would have to wait for several weeks to go in. OK, I said, how about three years? Same story he said. What if I signed up for 4 years no contract? You can be on the bus in days he said. Off I went to LA for the physical and written tests.
However because of the Air Force, even with a fresh GED and Draft Board OK, I was separated out from the rest of the recruits and sent to meet with the senior NCO, a Gunnery Sargent responsible for the LA recruiting office.
I said he would not regret letting me enlist, that I was a changed man and that I wanted to make up for my Air Force failure and to be a Marine. It was a nerve racking experience and I owe that E-7 a lot for the confidence he placed in me when he said, in so many words, "welcome aboard." A few days later I was on the bus to San Diego. (Oddly enough, when I obtained my records from the Marine Corps last year, it included correspondence that questioned the Los Angeles decision to allow me to enlist, then separately, concluded that they were acting within their authority.)
WHETHER YOU WERE IN THE SERVICE FOR SEVERAL YEARS OR AS A CAREER, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE DIRECTION OR PATH YOU TOOK.
I asked for a 0300 Infantry MOS and Vietnam out of boot camp but instead got 2531 (field radio operator) and MCAS Beaufort, SC instead. Little did I realize that carrying a radio was as high risk in combat as being a machine gunner. Thanks Staff Sargent for telling me  that.
As I recall there were six of us out of radio school assigned to Beaufort and there were several more PFCs already there when we arrived. It was good duty and I made meritorious Lance Corporal with less than a year in service. After about 9 months, it became clear that Beaufort, at least for 2531's, had been a place holder since half of us received orders to Vietnam at the same time.
After Staging Battalion at Pendleton, I flew to Danang and reported to Golf Battery, 3/12. A trip to the armory on the first day turned up a choice between an M-14 or a 45, since there were no M 16s available. Being a boot, I didn't focus on the fact that my job was as a communicator not a grunt and I opted for the 14 pounds of rifle and the extra weight of a bandolier with six magazines.
Listening to the radio traffic in the FDC (fire control center) the next day, I could see that I still had that field-grunt aspiration and requested a field assignment when one came available. The next day Lt John Dawson came to the comm tent to ask if I wanted to replace the radio operator on his FO team. He said the guy was a bundle of nerves. That afternoon we headed north to an ARVN Artillery Base near Dong Ha to coordinate artillery for grunts west of there on Operation Fremont. From the comfortable confines of the Battery, off I went humping 24 pounds of PRC 25 radio, two extra batteries, an ANTC antenna, 20 pounds of rifle, some frags and smoke grenades and a couple of days of rations.
We only had a single fire mission to coordinate for Fremont and returned the next day to Camp Evans where we were assigned to Bravo 1/4. A couple of days humping on company-sized sweeps out of Camp Evens more than convinced me to jettison the M-14, frags and whatever else I could to lighten the load. Three clicks across a bog nearly did me in.
The rest of the story is below.
IF YOU PARTICIPATED IN COMBAT OPERATIONS, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE ACTIONS WHICH WERE THE MOST SIGNIFICANT TO YOU AND, IF LIFE-CHANGING, IN WHAT WAY.
A week after no contacts, we launched Operation Granite, Oct. 25 1967 to Nov. 6, 1967, a search and destroy conducted by 1st Battalion 4th Marines on Hills 674 and 300 in Thua Thien Province, RVN. I had been in Vietnam now about two weeks, still in stateside utilities and  boots, but at least (I thought at the time) able to trade my M-14 for a 45. Alas, only to come to regret it later.
According to Marine Corps AA report (After Action), Granite resulted in 25 KIA in the field, 2 arrived DOA at Phu Bai 3rd Med Bn and 110 were WIA, 88 of who were medevaced wounds. There were 31 WIA and fourteen KIA on Friday the 27th, the day I was WIA and Lt. John Dawson was KIA. Although there was at least one KIA from every company, there were nine from Bravo: seven grunts, Lt. Dawson and our Corpsman, HM3 Stommes.
DAVID P BETTS, LCpl, Age 23, Seattle, WA
ROBERT M CARLOZZI, LCpl, Age 20, Wheaton, MD
DOUGLAS F CLEMMONS, Pfc, Age 19, Westville, FL
JOHN DAWSON, 2nd Lt., Age 24, Ardian, MI
MICHAEL J FONSECA, Pfc, Age 20, Gardner, KS
WILLIAM R HACKETT JR, LCpl, Age 21, Chicago, IL
ANGUS L HARE, Cpl, Age 18, Sneads, FL
EDDIE L JAMES JR, Cpl, Age 20, Chester, SC
VERNE D JOHNSON III, Pfc, Age 19, Ogden, UT
CURTIS W PAINTER, LCpl, Age 21, Charleston, SC
MERRICK R PIERCE, LCpl, Age 19, Portland, OR
HARRY L SCHLEE, 2ndLt, Age 25, Williamsport, PA
KENNETH C STOMMES, HM3, Age 20, Cold Spring, MN Corpsman
THOMAS F UHL, Cpl, Age 18, New York, NY
With three companies sweeping and one blocking we were with Bravo Company climbing on the left side of hill 674 early on the morning of 10/27/67. We had been ambushed two times by a small group that morning in a hit and run pattern. They lasted maybe 10-15 minutes and given the volume of firing, must have been from a fire-team size group of NVA. On the second ambush, we called in an artillery strike and walked it out 100 meters. We lucked out and caught one NVA. The CO gave the point man credit for the kill, but the exit wound was through his eye and from the back of the skull which was still intact. My guess then was a flacet from one of our rounds dropped in behind him and not from a gunshot. A round the head at 10 meters would have done a lot more damage.
 We tied a rope on the body and pulled him over in case he was booby trapped. The CO then ordered him tied to a tree and a "compliments of Bravo 1/4" sign was pinned on his chest. I remember standing there and looking up into the jungle and thinking that if someone was watching, they were not going to like this. Maybe it was a premonition.
Because of the hit and run pattern of the ambushes, Lt Dawson and I decided to move forward next time between the lead platoon and the point man to better spot targets. Big mistake since we were ambushed by a unit of the NVA, probably battalion sized. According to the AA report, the ambush was three sided, across the ravine separating Hill 300 from Hill 674, forward down the trail and above on our right with heavy small arms and machine gun fire and B-40 rockets.
The ambush began with light small arms fire to our front that took down the point man, Cpl Hare. Lt Dawson and I ran forward to about ten meters from the company line when we dropped down behind a rock outcropping to avoid getting hit. Within minutes, a machine gun, maybe 20 yards ahead on the trail opened up and rounds started coming in from across the ravine on hill 300 to our left. A fire team rushed forward toward the gun and the lead man made it abreast of me before taking a round in the gut. He dropped three feet to my side. A second man fell just below my legs. A corpsman (Kenny Stommes I think) ran out and dropped to his knees next to him. He was reaching for a dressing when I saw him thrown on his back by a burst of rounds.
I emptied my 45 and it jammed on the last magazine so I asked Dawson to give me his while he handled to radio. His gun also jammed on the first magazine. The grunt that was dropped next to me was still alive and writhing in pain and I asked him to push his gun over to me. He tried but was in too much pain.  When I reached out to grab it, I took a round through my left hand from the base of the thumb through the center of the palm. It shattered the M-16.
I tucked my hand under my armpit to stop the bleeding and tried to calm the guy lying next to me. After another minute he two he just said he couldn't stand it and he just rolled himself back toward our lines. There were hundreds of rounds and B-40 rockets going all over the place and I never knew if he made it that day.
When I turned toward Dawson he was gone. We had been unable to call in an artillery strike due to air activity near our location and, I learned later, he crawled back to confer with the CO on next steps to counter the ambush. The firing was so heavy that I decided not to run the risk myself.
I exchanged TWS emails with Sgt Tom (Jake) Jacobs who led a fire team in Bravo 1/4 that day. Here is what Tom added to my understanding of that day in his own words. "I was with Bravo Co., 1st. Platoon on that day. I lost two members of my fire team running up the trail to get the machine gun, Merrick Pierce and Paul Betts. Also my best friend, and our Corpsman, Kenny Stommes. There were four of us running up the trail to get the machine gun. First in line was McClavey then Pierce then me then Betts. McClavey was a 2nd. Lt. and got shot in his left side.Pierce got shot in the left side of his head.The NVA across the ravine missed me but Betts was hit numerous times in the lower torso. Stommes was already hit in the chest a little below us and was already dead when we passed him. So, we must of been pretty close to you. As we lay on the trail another friend of mine, Vince Matthews from White Plains, N.Y. ran past us and shot 3 LAWS into the bunker around the dogleg to the right. Vinnie received the Silver Star that day. Also close to us was a Lt. (I think his name was Dawson) who was an AO. He also got killed and was close to our Captain who was wounded."
GySgt Bill Peck, who was in 3rd Platoon, added this, "I just reread what you and Tom had remembered and remember that , I think we (3rd Plt.) was tail end on this. Also the word being passed numerous times to move up and move back added to the confusion. I was carrying the  M-79 and thinking the vegetation was so close to do any direct target shots so I lobbed the rounds into the ambush site like a mortar. We got the word that our arty and air could not get in along with the medevac chop's and we needed to move back down to the flat area just before we entered the mountains. "
The ambush had been sprung around 2:00 that afternoon and I was hit almost immediately. Maybe an hour or two later, the NVA began rolling grenades down on the trail from above us and a piece caught me in the forearm. Firing was still heavy so I stuck it out hunkered down behind the rocks and laying as flat as I could since all I had were smoke grenades left. Sometime around dusk I took a round through the mid thigh, taking bone and tissue out a 12 inch exit wound and twisting my leg almost perpendicular to my back. As luck would have it, the round probably only nicked the femoral artery otherwise I would have quickly bled to death. I pulled the leg down and sunk my right hand into the wound to apply pressure. I was bleeding but slowly rather than profusely. l didn't call for a corpsman since I realized that anyone trying would probably be a KIA like Stommes.
Laying there I came in and out of consciousness and was shaking violently no doubt from shock from a loss of blood. The hand was just numb, forearm inconsequential but the leg pain was unbelievable as every twitch of a muscle in the leg brought on spasms. Fire from all sides came in waves with periodic lulls and I think I remember an air strike a distance up the trail. My greatest fear, and one that came to mind often, was less about dying than being tortured to death by the gooks. I hoped and assumed that I death would be from drifting off from a blood loss rather than from the NVA beating me to death.
Sometime around twilight, I was started into consciousness when some rocks rained down on me from above and I thought someone had landed on my leg. I was screaming, "Get off my leg" when a voice yelled out "No one is on your leg, you're hit!" It was after dark and the firing had tailed off when I became aware and I thought I heard a voice saying they were pulling back. That  brought me to my senses and I yelled, "Hey, I am alive out here can someone help?" With that two guys ran out, rolled me on a poncho (which put me out) and dragged me back to a corpsman. (All of this is very hazy). I recall the corpsman splinting my leg with a sapling and getting fluids and morphine. I also remember being carried to the LZ, and being repeatedly dropped and dragged until I woke up in the pitch black on the LZ. I remember being put on the medevac with someone else who wasn't moving and being pulled out and rolled into bright lights before losing consciousness again.
I woke up in the hospital ward in Phu Bai in a body cast from the high chest down with casts on my left hand to the elbow and bandages on my right forearm. (A body cast was the way that a compound fracture of the femur had to be stabilized.) The CO was in the next bed and told me Lt Dawson covered him with his body when he was hit and in doing so, took a round in the shoulder. He died on the hill from a blood loss. The Captain said Lt Dawson took a round meant for him and he would have received a fatal wound had it not been for him. Dawson was awarded the Navy Cross for his action that day, his sixth week in country.
For me it was just starting. I was asked where I lived so they could send me back to CONUS to a Navy Hospital nearest home (which was San Diego or Long Beach). When they came back and told me I was going to the Naval Hospital in Oakland, CA, 500 miles from home, I asked why I couldn't go to one closer to home. "Because, I was told, Oak Knoll Naval Hospital is the amputee center for west of the Mississippi and that was the closest they could get me to home. It was a precaution they said because of my leg wound.
The telegram to my parents said my "condition and prognosis was good" but instead of Western Union, it was delivered by a Marine Casualty Officer the same day I arrived at Oak Knoll Naval Hospital on November 7th, 10 days after being wounded.  (The telegram is in my pictures). I have little recollection of those days except being constant pain and being awake only briefly before my next morphine shots. I don't know what the delay in family notification was but guess they were waiting for my condition to stabilize. I don't think a Casualty Officer made visits to families for "good condition and prognosis" wounds and neither did my father a disabled WWII paratrooper.
My condition alternated back and forth from a rampart leg infection and I barely survived a pulmonary embolism on Christmas day 1967 when a clot was thrown from my infected leg. Oak Knoll was laid out in long barracks-like buildings connected to one another by an outside walkway. You knew you were getting better as you moved down from the nursing station and ultimately down the ramp to a lower barracks. Of course, you knew you were getting worse when they moved you up. I ping ponged up and down a few times in the first months,
After nine months, multiple leg and hand surgeries, I walked out on both legs aided by a cane. The leg was saved after a dozen or more surgeries but I was not going to be a long distance runner with it. A prosthetic knee and an elevated lift on my shoe make it serviceable.
My wounds were rated at 40% and permanent, but I was placed on TDRL, the temporary disability retired list and not medically discharged. (It was changed to PDRL five years later).Being Retired was a surprise since I had been told I was going back to light duty, base to be determined but Camp Pendleton I hoped. The VA rating for the same injuries was more generous at 60% and has risen to 70% than 80% as parts and pieces got worse.
I had lost some of the use of my left hand and my right leg was 1 3/4th inches short with extensive muscle loss and circulatory issues that would worsen over time. A malunion of the bones in the thigh ultimately creates havoc in the knee and ankle, and a short leg leads to spinal deformations. If you connect the medical dots to your service-connected injury as I had, the VA does in fact give you the benefit of the doubt and ultimately an increase in your service-connected rating. I could not have enlisted with a deformed spine for example, and it had to be related to my body tilting to the right with a short leg.
I have had more issues with the hand injury than the leg which even after 45 years is frequently ornamental rather than functional. There is only so much that can be done to repair nerve damage.But, considering the alternative, I count myself among the lucky ones.
While I was in the hospital recovering, I had a surprise visit by the Everly Brothers and a couple of Playboy bunnies.
OF ALL YOUR DUTY STATIONS OR ASSIGNMENTS, WHICH ONE DO YOU HAVE FONDEST MEMORIES OF AND WHY? WHICH ONE WAS YOUR LEAST FAVORITE?
I liked MCAS Beaufort-liberty in Charleston, Myrtle Beach and Savannah. Bored stiff though at work.
FROM YOUR ENTIRE SERVICE CAREER WHAT PARTICULAR MEMORY STANDS OUT?
 Almost buying it in the field and again in the hospital.
A close second was being told in the hospital ward at Phu Bai that I was being transported to the Amputee Center for west of the Mississippi, and not to Long Beach or San Diego, the hospitals closer to home.
A third was my 3rd night in country out on a listening post (LP) with someone who wouldn't take his turn on watch. A struggle not to have freaked out. I still don't know why my Lt volunteered me to the CO since protocol is that as an FO, we were always with the command ground and didn't stand an LP.
A fourth was seeing an B-52 strike about 10 Kilometers away. First a string of flashes along the hill tops, then a shaking of the ground followed by a loud errrrr sound.I thought holy shit if you are anywhere near that.
OF ALL THE MEDALS, AWARDS, QUALIFICATION BADGES OR DEVICE YOU RECEIVED, PLEASE DESCRIBE THE ONE(S) MOST MEANINGFUL TO YOU AND WHY?
 Two Purple Hearts and a combat action ribbon (CAR) on the same day, 27 October 1967. I was wounded three separate times, twice by rounds and once by a shrapnel fragment from a grenade over a 6-hour period.I was surprised that I rated two awards. I think that was luck of the draw since I know others hit multiple times over many hours who received one award.
The Purple Heart makes me a third generation combat wounded veteran after my grandfather in WWI and my father on D-Day. I am a second generation disabled veteran who hopes there will never be a third generation.
WHICH INDIVIDUAL(S) FROM YOUR TIME IN THE MILITARY STAND OUT AS HAVING THE MOST POSITIVE IMPACT ON YOU AND WHY?
There was a Gunny at the Los Angeles recruiting station who, because of youthful mistakes could have scratched my enlistment. However, he trusted his instinct that I was a changed man with the right reasons for being a Marine.
WHAT PROFESSION DID YOU FOLLOW AFTER YOUR MILITARY SERVICE AND WHAT ARE YOU DOING NOW? IF YOU ARE CURRENTLY SERVING, WHAT IS YOUR PRESENT OCCUPATIONAL SPECIALTY?
Primarily I was in healthcare finance but a good mix of other interesting opportunities.
While recovering from multiple GSWs in Oak Knoll Naval Hospital in Oakland, CA, the VA administered a battery of tests that suggested that I would be an A- student if I pursued a college degree under the Disabled Veterans Vocational Rehabilitation Program. That was a surprise to me since I had an 8th grade education and a Florida State GED. But I also had hand and mobility limitations that greatly narrowed any career choices.
That fall I was discharged from the hospital, and began taking classes at the local community college before transferring as a junior to the University of California. Six years later I had a BA and two Masters Degrees, the second one from Princeton, and at age 30, entered the workforce into a senior management position. I stayed at that level for my entire 34-year career in health care, finance, government and technology across five states the UK and Japan.
It was a great career and set of experiences and one I owed to the investment in me made by the VA vocational rehabilitation program. The program had you select a vocational objective and paid tuition and expenses plus the GI Bill stipend until completion.  I choose college level teaching which qualified me for a Master's degree or 48 months of training. In addition, I was temporarily rated at 100% until I finished and also received Social Security Disability payments until I graduated.
There were a wealth of different job opportunities available to me graduating from the Woodrow Wilson School of Public and International Affairs at Princeton, but my focus was on working with the disabled or with Veterans. That led to my first two jobs in 1974 in Washington State the first as a Special Assistant to the Director of Vocational Rehabilitation. Six months later I was appointed to be the State Director of Veterans Affairs, the youngest in the country at that time and probably the first who was a Vietnam Veteran.
Over the course of the career that followed, I held multiple VP Finance positions at hospitals and health systems in New York City, California, Louisiana, New Jersey, and Alaska. I think a fair characterization of my approach to these jobs was less as a numbers cruncher and more as a patient advocate, something I remain proud of today.
One memorable experience from my hospital days was during Hurricane Katrina in 2005 when I was part of the command group covering LSU Medical Center (Charity Hospital) in New Orleans. We were cut-off by flooding without power and minimal rations until rescue arrived five days later. An Army amphibious vehicle arrived on the second day but was ordered off after a few shots were fired. This was even though we and they were armed. Fortunately we had loaded 6 patients into their amphibious vehicle who were in imminent threat of death.
There were over 600 patients and another 400 employees, family members and guests in the dark, damp and sweltering confines of that hospital until a flotilla of help arrived in swamp boats, ducks and other crafts on the fifth day. We had already caught a drifting boat and ferried a dozen patients to Tulane hospital where they were lifted off the roof by choppers, but getting 1,000 people to safety was another thing. The evacuation scene on the emergency room ramp was like a combat LZ with doctors, nurses and volunteers carrying patients on makeshift stretchers and loading them on various kinds of boats and ducks.  It took about 6 hours. My two colleagues and I stepped on the last boat never to return to the permanently closed facility, the primary teaching hospital of two medical schools and the only Level I trauma center within 500 miles.
In addition, I had a few other interesting career experiences: In the late nineties, I co-founded and was President-Tundra Communications, Inc. in Soldotna, Alaska, a telecommunications start-up and in 2003, a victim of the internet/telecom bubble. However, it was a great ride with jobs done in 32 states and 7 countries in Central and South America and in West Africa. Based in Alaska, we had a log house right on the Kenai River on the Kenai Peninsula 168 miles from Anchorage. The Kenai is the Salmon fishing river in North America and we took every advantage to score our share of fish.
In the early nineties, I was Director and CFO, HCI Medical Center, in Glasgow, Scotland, with offices in Abu Dhabi, Cairo, London and Athens. It was a great experience but an also a losing business proposition. Toward the end of my time in that position, our employer was the investment arm of the government of Abu Dhabi in the United Arab Emirates. Numerous trips to the UAE gave me a window into Arab culture that I never before had had.
In the 80s I was the General Manager, Nihon SMS, Tokyo, Japan, computer system start-up. Worked hard at learning Japanese and once had a good command of the spoken language but alas, it is gone now to join my college French in the mists of time.
Also in the 80s, I was Assistant Budget Director for the City of New York during Mayor Koch's term and controlled 1/3rd of the budgets of City Agencies. Later I had my first hospital job as the CFO of the city's municipal hospital system, the fourth largest hospital system in the country.
In the late 70s (after the Director of the Washington State Veterans Affairs Department) I worked for a multi-national foundation that that placed me in a consultant exchange with the British Home Office in London, England and the Brits in the US and France.
I am now retired and enjoying a quiet life in Florida with my wife Judy and our dogs Maggie and Susie.
WHAT MILITARY ASSOCIATIONS ARE YOU A MEMBER OF, IF ANY? WHAT SPECIFIC BENEFITS DO YOU DERIVE FROM YOUR MEMBERSHIPS?
DAV Life Member, TWS, VFW, Marine Corps Association. Both the DAV and VFW were helpful in filing for VA appeals but you must educate yourself on your condtions and complications and do the work you need to do to present a cogent argument. No one is really going to do it better.
IN WHAT WAYS HAS SERVING IN THE MILITARY INFLUENCED THE WAY YOU HAVE APPROACHED YOUR LIFE AND YOUR CAREER?
 I believe I am the product of the self-discipline and motivation to succeed taught me by the Marine Corps. I was a totally different person before enlisting and a completely changed man after wearing the uniform. It is as though I were three different people that inhabited and shared one lifetime. Surviving combat and then again surviving its effects took self-discipline and the persistence to overcome that I attribute to the Marine Corps experience.
I was a Gung Ho Marine and carried that spirit into doing well in college and on the job. I also still spit shine my shoes. I tied my wife to the Marines by also being married in the chapel at Camp Pendleton.
BASED ON YOUR OWN EXPERIENCES, WHAT ADVICE WOULD YOU GIVE TO THOSE WHO HAVE RECENTLY JOINED THE MARINE CORPS?
You have to take the long view for yourself and your family: you will not be able to match the benefits of a Marine Corps pension and Tricare for Life in the civilian sector period. If you have to leave active duty for whatever reason, consider the reserves.
If you are disabled, the Disabled Veterans Vocational Education program took me from a GED with and 8th grade education through a BA and two Masters Degrees, the last one from Princeton University.
IN WHAT WAYS HAS TOGETHERWESERVED.COM HELPED YOU REMEMBER YOUR MILITARY SERVICE AND THE FRIENDS YOU SERVED WITH.
 I really didn't start to think about putting some proverbial "footprints in the sand" until about a year and a half or so ago. As I started on the TWS website, I reflected on how little I knew of my father's war. He jumped into Normandy with the 82nd Airborne and was wounded and disabled at the Battle of the Bulge. I regretted not knowing more and wanted to leave my family and friends more of what my war was like.
In addition, TWS enabled me to connect with Lt .John Dawson's family who then posted his TWS profile. His classmates from High School had him recognized as an outstanding graduate this year (2013). I also was able to get a better sense of the battle where he was killed and I was wounded from Tom Jacobs and Bill Peck, also a TWS and a B 1/4 veterans.
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TWS VOICES
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