Vietnam 50th Commemoration: Four Brothers

Well since I'm the oldest I guess it will be me. We're four brothers who've all of us have served in the military. And three of us are retired from the military and one is not. When I first started out the boys were still in Denver and they were still in school, all three of them. And when I got out was about the time you guys started looking at, well he had gotten another job and then I think who, oh Gerry was being drafted and Don signed up. I was going to be drafted and decided I would join the Marine Corps, he decided well I'll take a break and he went down and filled out all the paperwork at the recruiting office for the Marine Corps. And all I had to do was go down and sign the paperwork, raise my right hand and swear allegiance to the country. And then we're on a delayed plan and in July we went out to San Diego and started our career together. For me, I joined the Marine Corps before I was out of high school (laughs). I joined it on the 23rd of March and went on active duty on the 4th of July and was part of the all state platoon from Colorado, you know they have a big shin dig where we wore these red ties and white shirts and cowboy hats and stuff and it was going on you know we loaded up the plane you know, flew out of Denver. All of us together, we were all from Colorado. And in fact in wasn't until basic training that we even began to hear about speeding up basic training to send the troops to Vietnam. And we finish basic training, went to school together, we transferred to Cherry Point, North Carolina together, promoted together and got orders for Vietnam together and we ended up serving in Vietnam Got back and finished up in Twentynine Palms. And having two brothers during Vietnam - in Vietnam - had to be really tough on the parents. Because that's half our family. In the same unit and together. I mean we shared the same tent, okay (laughs) So that was pretty close and it was kind of nice to have support in a combat zone of having family together. Even though the military didn't like that part of it, but that family cohesiveness made it easier to serve while you were there. Was that intentional? (No) Did you guys try to stick together? No, it was just that the Marine Corps guaranteed from the buddy system basic training. After that it's wherever they needed you. We both tested for electronics school, we went to Fort Lewis, Texas for training and he chose three duty stations different to my three and they still sent us to Cherry Point together. We were promoted, they need 10 Corporals for Vietnam. I was number 11. Then they promoted one of the Corporals to Sergeant, brought me down to number 10 and so I got orders to go to Vietnam. We went to Pendleton together, went Okinawa. We were separated for about a month then I found out where he was and got stationed at battalion and they saw me coming and said,"hey he's trained here, he's here" and we're just put together because they needed us at head quarters. And that's how we ended up in Vietnam together. Well, all I can say about the Vietnam era was we went over and when we came back to Colorado there was nobody uh at the airport that even recognized, number one that we even served, and in fact when we came back we got a taxi cab from the airport and went home and dropped or sea bags and said we were home. Unbeknownst to us during the time that we were traveling is there had been a C-130 that went down and killed a bunch of Marines. And we were returning home and so that was what their thoughts were. Is that maybe we had gone down with that, so they were really happy. When Gerry and Don came home and dropped their sea bags on the floor my Mother carefully turned off the stove before she came unglued on the place and Dad came upstairs and gave Don and Gerry a hug and that really change my parents relationship with us as kids. We never hugged, we never, Dad never kissed us as kids growing up. But it wasn't until they got home from Vietnam that my father started kissing us and giving bigger hugs you know, as a family unit. So I think it drew as an end result was it brought us all back into service. My folks didn't necessarily want me to go into the military because again, Vietnam is still going on but I felt that I had an obligation to serve my country because I've gotten a lot back from this country and it's very very important for me to go give my service back. And like I said, I came off active duty continued on with the Guard. What we forget is we need to tell the stories. Because we're the only ones that can tell it. Those that are dead can't tell you what happened or why. So we have to give that up and share it. It's hard. So anyways, sorry. But it's something we have to be able to do as service members who survived.