| Have you ever wanted to find someone
who you served with, but you have forgotten his name, rank,
and social security number? There may be other ways to do
this which could possibly take years. The FAV wants to make
it simpler.
Dear Vietnam Vet:
I was 17 years old when I was sent to Vietnam. It
was mid January, 1968. Twelve days after I arrived to the
9th Marine's at Que San the Tet offensive started.
I remember a lot of different battles that I was
in, and I also remember so many guys that at the time were
very close to me. But I can't remember their names. It was
the kind of place that you didn't want to make a friend
because so many of them were killed or wounded, and for
the most part you never really found out what happened to
those guys. They were just gone.
When Tet started, we were just outside of Que San.
We were overrun and isolated. Hell broke out all over. After
the second day I was sure everyone with me was dead. Charlie
wasn't just inside the wire, he owned it. I had been playing
dead for about four hours, when I decided to try to get
back to a secured area. I started to crawl. After a while
I came across another marine, he joined me and on we went.
Within two hours there was six of us, of which three were
wounded.
I really didn't know these guys. I have no idea
what happened to them or the chopper pilot that pulled us
out of there. But not a day goes by that I don't relive
the moment or see their faces. The marine corps nicknamed
the survivors of the 9th, "The Walking Dead."
If you're one of these, and if you're up to it, I would
love to know you're o.k. They called me Motown.
Let's refer to Motown and let's say you made it out
with him. Let's also say he saved your life or vice versa.
When everyone made it safely out you were evac'd out and never
saw Motown again. The Federal databases and Armed Forces databases
could probably never help you locate Motown. But, with every
ones participation, we hope to be able to do that.
The Where Are You Now program has been a goal of the
foundation since its inception. Our focus here is to established
a national database with every veteran registered in it.
We would like each and every veteran to fill out the
registration form and put yourself in the database. If you
belong to an organization, take copies of the registration
form, have them fill them out, and either send them to the
FAV, or enter them into the computer yourself. Same goes for
reunions, people you know, etc.. Again, without the participation
of each one of you, our efforts will be wasted.
There is no cost for registering or using the database,
but again, it won't be successful unless we get every ones
participation.
If you happen to locate someone using the database,
drop us a line and let us
know. |
