Yesterday Jimmy Dime came to visit me and Daddy. I’ve known Jimmy since the 70s when Daddy taught Jimmy and his wife in his young married Sunday School class at Haven Heights Baptist Church. I didn’t realize it but Jimmy is a Vietnam Vet. He talked about flying in a Huey helicopter over the base and all around the base there were bombs and heavy gunfire everywhere. Then Jimmy said something really quite amazing he said “I suppose our helicopter was being shot at but you know when you’re nineteen years old you don’t really think something going to happen to you”. When he said he was just nineteen I was going to ask him if he heard the song nineteen but the conversation went on and I didn’t ask him if he knew the song.
As the song says in World War II the average age of the combat soldier was twenty-six in Vietnam it was nineteen. When my Granddaddy was a German POW he was a thirty year old man imagine being a nineteen year old kid and being a POW in Vietnam! Granddaddy came home a war hero, of coarse Donald Trump would say that he wasn’t a war hero because after Granddaddy was hit by a German grenade and had a back full of shrapnel, Granddaddy was riding on the outside of a tank when the Germans captured him. Getting captured meant that in Donald Trumps view Granddaddy was not a war hero, but to be fair to Donald Trump I’m sure that being hit by a grenade is not nearly as painful as having a bone spur on your heel. Now what I’m asking you to do next is not to glorify anyone rather it’s a chance to recognize people we may know but we might not be aware of their service in Vietnam. Please in the comments tell everyone how old you were when you served in Vietnam, this is not bragging on yourself it’s letting people who don’t know your history to be aware of your service. And no matter what Donald Trumps says you are ALL WAR HEROS!