Crewmen aboard the destroyer USS ARTHUR W. RADFORD (DD-968) participate in the traditional shellback initiation ceremony during Exercise Unitas XXI. The shellback initiation takes place anytime a U.S. Navy ship crosses the equator. By Donn Nemchick There is a long standing maritme tradition to have a ceremony when the ship crosses the
By Vietnam Marine Veteran Rich Thurmond We called the United States “The World” in Vietnam. That's how it felt. Vietnam seemed like another planet altogether, and “The World” was the distant place we dreamed of going back to. My return home almost didn’t happen on schedule. Two days before I was supposed to leave,
By Vietnam Army Veteran Jim Janicki After reading the “Coming Home After War” issue of VBC Magazine, I felt compelled to share my own story. I enlisted in the U.S. Army on October 31, 1966, and served until September 17, 1969. I trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina, and then at Fort Eustis, Virginia,
From left to right: Michael Archer, Tom Mahoney and their senior drill instructor at Boot Camp Graduation, Marine Corps Recruit Depot, San Diego, California, August 1967. (Michael Archer) By Michael Archer Michael Archer is an author, lecturer, and Vietnam Veteran who served as a radio operator during the 1968 siege of the
Author of The Unlikely War Hero: A Vietnam War POW’s Story of Courage and Resilience in the Hanoi Hilton By Daria Sommers In 1969, when the North Vietnamese decided to release the first American POWs as a propaganda stunt, they chose Doug Hegdahl to be one of them. They called the twenty-one-year old Navy
Dedication of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, Washington, DC,November 13, 1982. (Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund) By Diane Carlson Evans Earlier this year, Vietnam Veteran and former Army Nurse Diane Carlson Evans was honored with the Presidential Citizens Medal. The second highest civilian award, it is given to those who have “performed exemplary deeds
