Forty-two years ago, I had met some exceptional young men. We were all part of a rifle company humping the jungles of Vietnam, including two months during the Cambodia incursion in 1970. Now, in a matter of hours, I would be seeing 18 of them at a reunion in Myrtle Beach, S.C. I knew they would have aged, but in my mind's eye, they are still the brave young warriors who did their duty in a nasty war they didn't totally understand. And through it all, bonded together as brothers, placing their lives in each other's hands. I was proud to be one of them.When the plane reached cruising altitude and the pilot finished welcoming us aboard, I began a conversation with the young man. His name was Jason, an engineer from Atlanta, who was heading home following a business trip to Los Angeles. When he asked me where I was going, I told him about meeting up with some men I served with in Vietnam. "We read about Vietnam in high school," he said, "but I didn't learn much. There were only four or five paragraphs about it in our history book." That amazed me. How could a 10-year war that changed the United States in so many ways rate less than half a dozen paragraphs? I decided to tell Jason as much about the hows and whys of the war as best I understood them and what I observed from my ringside seat.
When I finished, Jason wanted to know how the men felt about the war. "They didn't want to be there," I answered. "They were a long way from home in a hot, dangerous place full of bad smells, bugs, and snakes. Every step they took, they didn't know if it would be their last. Yet in spite of all the uncertainty, the camaraderie we built among each other is what kept most of us going. We had each other's back."
Our conversation was interrupted by a pretty flight attendant asking us what we'd like to drink. I got some water and Jason got a coke. Sipping our drinks, we both fell into silence. Soon Jason closed his eye, perhaps contemplating what he had just learned about the Vietnam War from an eyewitness. I stared ahead, lost in thought about the reunion and how it would not have happened without a website exclusively for veterans.TogetherWeServed.com is an exclusive website where former, retired and active duty men and women reconnect and bond. It's also a place where I met some really great people.
The first time I signed on, I was surprised how easy it was to navigate and within a couple of hours, I found six old army buddies. When someone becomes a member there are encouraged to fill out their profile page with as much personal information about their military and personal history. There are places for unit assignments, awards, schools attended and military and personal photos. To capitalize on this powerful search capacity, I filled out my profile on both the Marine Corps and Army site as completely as possible.
I had joined the U.S. Marine Corps after graduating from high school in 1956, then joined the Army as an infantry second lieutenant in 1966 during the height of Vietnam War. Following a year of selected training, I was assigned to the 5th Special Forces Group in 1967. My first four-month was on A-Team 102 Tien Phouc along the Song Tran River southwest of Na Trang for four months. The remainder of my tour was with Project Delta, a special operations units running small reconnaissance teams deep in enemy-held territory. Today the unit is known as Delta Force.
My second tour began in 1969 when I was a rifle company commander of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion 12th Cavalry Regiment, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile). In May 1970, we operated for two months in Cambodia. I retired a Lieutenant Colonel in 1984 and jumped into a career as a writer and documentary filmmaker.With my entire military career uploaded on both my Marine Corps and Army profiles, it wasn't long before I begin getting messages from old Army buddies, most of whom I served with in Vietnam.
After months of exchanging emails and messages over the TWS message center with Vietnam comrades, the idea of holding a reunion began to take shape. There was a lot of enthusiasm and the beginning of some planning. The final shove, however, came from somewhere else.
One day, I got a TWS message from an unknown veteran. He wrote he had been a member of our company when it arrived in Vietnam in 1965 and for the past eight years, the original members had been meeting for reunions every two years. He wanted to open up the next reunion to be held in Myrtle Beach to all veterans from all years who served in the company. I wrote back we would be there and got busy getting the word out.
Reflecting on how it all came about, I was struck by the versatility of TWS. It not only brings together long-lost friends, it's a national archive where millions of stories and photos are posted, and with each, a lasting legacy of America's military heritage.
Whenever I get the chance, I like to search for photos and stories posted by vets who served in World War II, Korea and Vietnam. It never fails to amaze me the detail some of the veterans have posted. It is better than a history book because it's personal and because of these living, breathing "scrapbooks" come straight from the gut and the heart. The postings by friends and relatives honoring the men and women who paid the supreme sacrifice are the ones that get me the most.
Somewhere in my mental praising of why I love Together We Served, I'd fallen asleep. The next thing I felt was the plane leveling off and the pilot telling us we would be landing in 15 minutes. The head flight attendant got on the horn with some gate numbers for some connecting flights and thanked us for flying their airline.
The plane landed at the Atlanta and parked at a gate. Walking off the plane I said goodbye to Jason and headed for the gate my flight to Myrtle Beach would depart. Two hours later the commuter plane landed. I called the hotel where I would be staying and where the reunion was being held. In a matter of minutes, a van picked me up.The excitement and anticipation was growing inside as I realized that within minutes, I would be coming face-to-face with some of my combat buddies after more than four decades. They understood better than anyone else about what Vietnam meant because they were there, they shared in the experience too. No doubt Shakespeare had us in mind when he wrote in Henry V, "We few, we happy few, we band of brothers".
This article appeared in the April 2013 Vietnam magazine
The A Shau Valley is located in Thua Thein Hue Province, 30 miles southwest of the coastal city of Hue, along the border of Laos. The valley runs north and south for twenty-five miles and is a mile-wide flat bottomland covered with tall elephant grass, flanked by two strings of densely forested mountains that vary from three to six thousand feet. Its geography and isolation made it a primary infiltration route for the North Vietnamese Army (NVA) into South Vietnam for men and material brought down from the north along the Ho Chi Minh Trail. 
The camp was routinely harassed by small Vietcong (VC) formations leading up to the battle. Throughout February andMarch, 1966, platoon-sized troops from the camp were sent out to conduct reconnaissance patrols in the surrounding area. On March 5, two North Vietnamese Army (NVA) defectors turned up at the camp. Under interrogation, they indicated that four battalions of the North Vietnamese 325th Division were planning to attack the camp.
Shortly after midnight on March 9, with the cloud ceiling at 400 feet, an Air Force AC-47D "Spooky 70" from the 4th Air Commando Squadron got through the clouds and flew up the valley at treetop level, strafing the attacking NVA formations. On the gunship's second pass, it was hit hard by ground fire. The right engine was torn from its mounts. Seconds later, the other engine was knocked out, too. The bullet-riddled AC-47 crash-landed on a mountain slope, five miles farther up the valley. All six crewmen survived but were attacked by NVA troops. Three crewmen were killed but the other three were eventually rescued by a U.S. Air Force HH-43 helicopters.
There weren't many jets in Vietnam in the early part of the war, so Fisher had volunteered to fly the A-1E, which was in use both by the South Vietnamese Air Force and by U.S. Air Commandos. Fisher was initially sent to Bien Hoa, where he trained South Vietnamese pilots to fly combat in the A-1E. He then transferred to the 1st Air Commando Squadron at Pleiku.
Fisher went up again to bring down two Air Force C-123s. The mountains were tight on all sides, and forward visibility was less than half a mile. They began taking fire seven miles north of the camp. Fisher suppressed the ground fire as the transports air-dropped supplies for the fort from an altitude of 50 feet.
Throughout the day U.S. Marine Corps and Vietnam Air Force (VNAF) aircraft strafed NVA positions around the camp, but as fighting continued the situation deteriorated with ammunition supplies running short. 
The cloud ceiling in the valley was at 800 feet - better than the previous day - but the visibility also helped the enemy gunners, who were shooting down on the aircraft from the 1,500-foot hillsides. At the besieged camp, the NVA had mounted a ground attack. 
Myers was going too fast to land on the short runway, so he would have to belly slide in. He jettisoned his bombs and retracted his landing gear, but his attempt to release the center line fuel tank failed. The fuel tank exploded on contact with the ground.
The odds of coming out again were not good. He would be landing in a crossfire from 20 anti-aircraft gun positions that lined the valley. The enemy also had hundreds of automatic weapons. The runway was a major hazard. The pierced steel planking was slick, and shards of it - torn by the mortars and bombs - were sticking up and could rip airplane tires to shreds. The runway was cratered and littered with shell casings, pieces of Myers' aircraft, barrels, pieces of tin and metal, and other debris.
As the A-1Es continued their strikes, Fisher called for a rescue helicopter. Ten minutes later, the command post said the helicopter was at least 20 minutes out. Fisher figured that this was probably a guess. Anyway, it wouldn't be much longer before the NVA closed in on Myers and killed him.
Myers' first words were: "You dumb son of a bitch, now neither of us will get out of here." He drank some water from Fisher's canteen and asked for a cigarette. Fisher, a non-smoker, did not have any.
Two hundred and one air strikes were flown in support of the fort on March 10. Of these, 103 were by the Marine Corps, 67 by the Air Force, 19 by the Navy, and 12 by the South Vietnamese Air Force. Including Myers' A-1E and the gunship, six Air Force, Navy, and Marine Corps aircraft were shot down in the effort.
Fisher wasn't the only hero from the battle. Bennie Adkins of Opelika, Alabama was awarded the Distinguished Service Cross (DSC). Then a 32-year-old sergeant first class, Adkins was among a handful of Americans working with troops of the South Vietnamese Civilian Irregular Defense Group at Camp A Shau when the camp was attacked by a large North Vietnamese and Viet Cong. force on March 9, 1966.
Within two hours, Adkins was the only defender firing a mortar weapon. When all mortar rounds were expended, Adkins began placing effective rifle fire upon the enemy as they infiltrated the camp perimeter and assaulted his position. Despite receiving additional wounds from enemy rounds exploding on his position, Adkins fought off relentless waves of attacking North Vietnamese soldiers. 
But Adkins' ordeal was not over. Because he was carrying a wounded comrade, he and his small group couldn't get to the evacuation helicopters sent to pick up the battle's survivors, forcing them into the jungle, avoiding their North Vietnamese pursuers for 48 hours.
As a reporter for Reuters, The Christian Science Monitor and Time magazine, An covered American and South Vietnamese military and diplomatic events and was one of a handful of reporters admitted to off-the-record briefings by American authorities. In appreciation for his dedicated work, Time made him a full staff correspondent, the only Vietnamese to be given that distinction by a major American news organization.
In April 1945, Ho Chi Minh met with members of the American Office of Strategic Services (OSS) and offered to provide intelligence to the allies provided that he could have "a line of communication with the allies." The OSS agreed to this and later sent a military team to train Ho's men tactics for fighting jungle warfare. 
At the International Geneva Conference on July 21, 1954, the French government and the Viet Minh made an agreement that effectively gave Communist-domination in North Vietnam above the 17th parallel and a U.S. supported government of South Vietnam below the 17th parallel. For one year, South Vietnam was ruled by Emperor Bao Dai until his prime minister, Ngo Dinh Diem, created the Republic of Vietnam. Soon an insurgency, backed by the North, developed against Diem's government. The conflict gradually escalated into the Vietnam War.
It was only after the war that correspondents like Frank McCulloch of Time, David Halberstam of The New York Times and Morley Safer of CBS News learned that their colleague had been a colonel in the North Vietnamese Army. What's perhaps just as striking in the story of Pham Xuan An is the good will his former colleagues still feel toward him.
"He was an intellectual, dog-lover, bird-lover, a chain-smoker, super smart guy, and we thought a great reporter," said Peter Ross Range, who was Time's Saigon Bureau Chief in 1975. "ButAn was also a little strange. He would disappear for days at a time and nobody had any idea where he was. Now, of course, we know where he was at least part of that time." That would, of course, be his trips to meet with the Politburo in North Vietnam.
His biographers have also been unable to find evidence that he spread falsehoods. "I was hoping to find evidence that the stories had been slanted, but I couldn't find it," says Larry Berman, author of the biography "Perfect Spy" - a book aboutAn's life adventures - said that it's not surprising that, 40 years later, the story of Pham Xuan An is not seen by former friends as a tale of betrayal. "An loved America, appreciated the free press, was respected by his colleagues - but he loved his own country more, and wanted it to be independent," Berman said. Today, Berman believes most Americans see the war the way that An did, agreeing with him that it would have been better for the Americans to go home.
An had no regrets about his double life during the war. "The truth? Which truth?" he said in his interview with Morley Safer. "One truth is that for 10 years I was a staff correspondent for Time magazine, and before that Reuters. The other truth is that I joined the movement in 1944 and in one way or another have been part of it ever since. Two truths - both truths are true."
Causes of the war included British attempts to restrict U.S. trade, the Royal Navy's forced impressment of as many as 10,000 American merchant sailors, and America's desire to expand its territory. The United States suffered many costly defeats at the hands of British, Canadian and Native American troops over the course of the War of 1812, including the capture and burning of the nation's capital, Washington, D.C., in August 1814.
At the outset of the 19th century, Great Britain was locked in a long and bitter conflict with Napoleon Bonaparte's France. In an attempt to cut off supplies from reaching the enemy, both sides attempted to block the United States from trading with the other. In 1807, Britain passed a series of decrees called the Orders in Council, which required neutral countries to obtain a license from British authorities before trading with France or its colonies, outraging many neutral trading partners. In 1809, the U.S. Congress repealed Thomas Jefferson's unpopular Embargo Act, which, by restricting trade, had hurt Americans more than either Britain or France. Its replacement, the Non-Intercourse Act, specifically prohibited trade with Britain and France. It also proved ineffective, and in turn was replaced with a May 1810 bill stating that if either power dropped trade restrictions against the United States, Congress would in turn resume non-intercourse (blocking trade) with the opposing power. As a result, that November, after Napoleon hinted he would drop restrictions, President James Madison blocked all trade with Britain, contributing to already-tense relations between the two countries. This maintained a natural alliance between the U.S. and France against Great Britain that began during the Revolutionary War just a few decades prior.
In the fall of 1811, Indiana's territorial governor William Henry Harrison led U.S. troops to victory over the native confederacy in the Battle of Tippecanoe, earning him a reputation that eventually carried him to the White House. The defeat convinced many Indians in the Northwest Territory that they needed, even more, British support to prevent American settlers from pushing them further out of their lands. Americans on the western frontier demanded an end to this British intervention and support of the native confederacy, adding to the tensions. 
Things looked better for the United States in the Northwest Territory, as Commodore Oliver Hazard Perry's brilliant success against the Royal Navy in the Battle of Lake Erie in September 1813 placed the territory firmly under American control. Harrison was subsequently able to retake Detroit in October 1813, with a victory in the Battle of Thames, in which Tecumseh was killed. Tecumseh's passing weakened the native resistance to American expansionism and forced them to retreat westward. But Tecumseh subsequently became an iconic folk hero in American, Aboriginal, and Canadian history, being the subject of books, movies, documentaries, and a yearly outdoor theater drama in Chillicothe, OH that recreates his powerful speech to the leaders and warriors of his tribal confederacy from atop a large rock, prior to the raid that helped the British capture Fort Detroit.
On September 13, 1814, Baltimore's Fort McHenry withstood 25 hours of bombardment by the British Navy. The following morning, the fort's soldiers hoisted an enormous American flag, a sight that inspired Francis Scott Key, imprisoned on a Royal Navy ship and witness to the battle, to write a poem he titled "Defence of Fort McHenry." Later set to the tune of an old English drinking song, the poem became the lyrics for "The Star-Spangled Banner" which was adopted as the U.S. national anthem. The Battle of Baltimore resulted in American forces repulsing sea and land invasions of the busy port city of Baltimore, Maryland, and the death of the commander of the invading British forces. British forces subsequently left the Chesapeake Bay area and began gathering their efforts for a campaign against New Orleans.
The enacted legislation states that "no federal funds can be used in the construction of The Wall of Remembrance. The Foothills Chapter #301 of The Korean War Veterans Association located in Greenville, SC passed a resolution and named a "Fund-Raising" committee to raise the money for the 547 plus South Carolinians who paid the ultimate price to stop the spread of communism in Asia and to keep South Korea a free nation. South Korea, in a relatively short time, became one of the largest economies in the world, and instead of being a receiver of foreign aid became a provider of foreign aid. 
The average age of Korean War Veterans today is eighty- five years. The average of men (a few women) fighting in the "Korean War" was nineteen (19) years. If the average age was nineteen (19), there must have been many sixteen (16), seventeen (17), and eighteen (18) year olds on the frontline. The draft had ended after WW II so all of the military in the first few months of the hostilities were volunteers. And yes, they were heroes, every single one of them. All who served in Korea, in my view, were heroes.