The reason I was gone overnight after the Country Living Fair was because I continued on to Cincinnati to attend a reunion of the Military Police battalion my older brother was with in Vietnam.
He was killed in a car wreck shortly after returning from Vietnam and years later I tracked down some of his buddies from Nam. My brother was a very proud MP and I knew he would have stayed in touch with his old friends. I paid his lifetime dues to his group and they made me an honorary Dragon Fighter. The Blog Tech and his sister heard many stories about my big brother over the years and this was chance for The Blog Tech to meet my brothers peers. I have no actual photos from the reunion but the 2nd largest Oktoberfest was being held right in front of our hotel, so I am just showing some pics of it.
Unfortunately, only one of my brother's old buddies attended, but I was so happy to finally meet him. He had lots of stories to tell and I had all of the photos my brother took of Quan Tri, the area where he was stationed. There were other guys who had been in Quan Tri at different times than my brother and they were very interested in seeing all of the pics.
We only stayed one night which was a shame because we missed meeting lots of the other MP's. Next time we will stay the whole time.
I've missed my brother a lot over all the years and this was about as close as I was able to get to him again. It's the closed The Blog Tech would ever get to him too. The BT was so impressed with the music memories these guys had. My brother's buddy had met Roy Orbison which knocked The Blog Tech's socks off!
It made me very proud to meet this group which served our country so proudly in a horrible war to return home and be treated the way they were. Times have changed so much for our military. My path crossed with another blogger at The Country Living Fair who has just had a very sad experience. She wrote about it so eloquently that I thought you might want to read about it. She has several posts about it so I will link you to one and then if you are interested you can read the others. It is a wonderful American story.http://thescrappyappleyard.blogspot.com/2011/09/fallen-soldier.html
No matter what any of us feel about war, we all should be proud and thankful for those that go off to war to protect us.
Comments
it's so nice that you went to the reunion... beverly is right...your brother would be proud....
A precious and loving tribute.
Good job.
Christer.
Brendan and your name were mentioned many times during our Reunion and know all would love to see you guys each year. I know I would love to have you there.
Billy and I became close and were together 24/7 for over 6 months. I just know this Reunion would be a big event for Billy. I so hate his life was taken away so early and especially after all we went through. I lost a dear friend and you guys are special.
Thanks to all the kind words in this column for Veterans of Vietnam and other wars everywhere.
Tony Sills