Once alone, Vietnam vets reunite

Can you tell if either of these soldiers were drafted? Enlisted? Can you tell if they voted for Republicans? Democrats? Can you tell if they are rich? Poor? You can't tell any of that by looking at this picture. What you can tell is that they cared about each other no matter what else was going on because they shared a common bond as brothers. The rest of it, just didn't matter.

This article points out there are brothers out there still caring about what really matters, each other.

Once alone, Vietnam vets reunite
By Joe Rodriguez
jrodriguez@mercurynews.com

Posted: 09/12/2009 06:42:32 PM PDT
Updated: 09/13/2009 02:45:56 AM PDT


Liz Condon was only 18 when her older brother, Vic Best, was killed in the Vietnam War more than 40 years ago.

"He was a screwball, a goof and the nicest guy, and he was my best friend," she said Saturday afternoon at an emotional reunion of her brother's old unit in Santa Clara. She gestured with her hand around a meeting room filled with gray-haired veterans, a few who knew her brother.

"These people take you into their hearts, they love you," Condon said. "They are the only people I have left who knew my brother."

It is difficult to pinpoint the moment Vietnam veterans emerged from the isolated, unhappy and silent foxhole of the heart they had hunkered down in for decades after the war, but the first reunion of the Blackhorse regiment 24 years ago is as good a guess as any. Formally known as the 11th Armored Cavalry's Veterans of Vietnam and Cambodia, the group held its latest get-together this weekend at a Hyatt Hotel near a huge amusement park. While the 700 or so Army vets spent a lot of time catching up with old friends — determined not to rehash the war politics of the present — this was no ordinary reunion of fading old soldiers.

When it sends out invitations to the reunions, the Blackhorse alumni also invite the widows, brothers, sisters and civilian friends of the 729 men from the regiment who were killed in action from 1966 to 1972. Since the first reunion in San Antonio in 1985, dozens of "KIA families" have learned preciously more about the men they lost after meeting their war buddies, or simply have had their memories reaffirmed.
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Once alone, Vietnam vets reunite