Skinny Guy

Hey! Who's that skinny young kid? See that map over his shoulder? That's the state of Illinois, with his hometown pinned. Considering the place he was in when this picture was taken, I know that that home town was the one place he really wanted to be, small and provinical that it may have been! Hard to believe that picture was taken 40 years ago. It was a long time ago in a war far away. The memories don't fade for those who were there, though. Ron went over December 21 of 1967 and came home in February of 1969. 1968, the one whole year that he spent there, by all accounts, was the year that saw the worst of the fighting. And his mother sent him off just before Christmas. I have often imagined how that must have felt for her. I can't imagine having to take your oldest son to the airport and leave him to the U.S. military in an already very unpopular war. I have always been thankful that I didn't meet him until a late summer day in 1969, well after he got back. As a side note here, Ron had hundreds of slides (an old fashioned technology whereby pictures were projected onto a wall, sheet, screen etc. Very ungainly) of his time in Viet Nam and his R and R in Australia. Only a handful of them survived the 40 years in our basement including this one. Such a shame.