Vietnam Vets show up to welcome home others get surprise

They were supposed to be welcoming home a soldier from Afghanistan. They showed up like they always do to make sure these men and women do not come home feeling no one cared. After all, they know what that feels like and they remembered every sorrow their homecoming carried.

My husband is a Vietnam veteran. When I showed him the video I shot of what happened when 7 Marines came back from Afghanistan to Orlando International Airport, he got sad. He remembered when he came home and how he felt.

He finished watching the video and then I told him that it was only possible because Vietnam Veterans made sure it did. It is because of them the troops have been treated a lot differently than they were. After all, a lot of them raised their own children to serve as well. Yes, even after they were treated so poorly. That's how amazing these men and women are. He smiled after that.

To the Vietnam Veterans in Little River, you deserved this!

Vietnam veterans receive overdue 'welcome home'
by Ryan Naquin
Posted: 10.21.2011

Ryan Naquin

LITTLE RIVER -- What was supposed to be a welcome home for a serviceman returning from Afghanistan turned into the surprise of a lifetime for a group of Vietnam veterans.

James Young drove from Gainesville, GA for the event. "It's a camaraderie that only veterans can experience," said Young. "Whether I know these men or not."

Young and more than twenty other veterans from the Army's 25th Infantry during the Vietnam War gathered in Little River, SC Friday.
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also

DIFFERENCE MAKER: Vietnam veteran jumped at the chance to meet troops in Afghanistan
Oct. 21, 2011
Written by
JOHN CARLSON
MUNCIE -- It's been a long time since Charlie Manis was an Army Ranger in National Guard Company D, fighting in Vietnam.

Not since 1969, to be precise.

Nobody has to remind him of the Rangers' motto, though.

"Rangers lead the way," he repeated Wednesday, seated at a table in La Hacienda, the popular southside Mexican restaurant he has owned and run for nearly 34 years.

For him, they are words to live by, ones that have set the course of his life. They also explain why, when recently given an unprecedented opportunity to join three other Ranger combat veterans in meeting American troops in Afghanistan, he jumped at the chance.

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