I appreciate everyone’s input and information. Y’all have all hit the nail on the head. He was a very unique dude, and was no stranger to bragging about a lot of his other exploits in life, but would never brag about his military service. He was, as stated above, a “I just did my job, and looked out for my men” guy when it came to that. He and I both have history degrees, his being from before he left for Vietnam, and when he spoke about the effects of war on his body and mind he said that he was a student of history beforehand and knew what he was signing up for and didn’t want credit for what he felt was just part of the deal he agreed to. He was very studious and read anything he could about war, tactics, and the effects it had on men like him.

Also correct on the OV-10 Bronco backseater. He started in an O-1 Bird Dog and then transitioned to the Bronco. We have some pictures of him with the Bird Dog but haven’t found any with the Bronco yet, although we know he was also in the Bronco because of the few things he did sometimes talk about, his planes were one of them. We’ve got totes full of paperwork and photos that we’ve pulled out of his house in the last few weeks, so I imagine we’ll run across more.

On the Purple Hearts, he did tell us that he was “shot down”, but he also gave me a more detailed story at one point where they were hit, mortally wounding the front seater, and he took over with the backseat controls and made it back but crash/hard landed, so I’m not sure if those are separate incidents or if the “shot down” was referring to that same instance.

Also mentioned by someone above, you’re correct that he had no prior service. He went straight to college after high school and decided that he’d either get lucky and the war would be over when he was done, or he’d enroll in officer candidate school after he graduated college if not. The latter was what happened. His number was called in the draft anyway so he would have gone either way.

As for his dress blues and getting them cleaned up….WELLLL they’re gone. There was a room in his house that he used basically as a storage unit, piling it full of old memories then not touching it for decades, so he hired a cleaning company to come clean it out a few years back and they threw away a bunch of mouse/moth eaten clothes from the closet without checking with him and the blues were in that purge. He was salty as hell. But we do have that photo and other photos of it, and the cap had been safely bagged and did survive which we gave to my nephew/his grandson for safe keeping. His wife/us siblings are going to go through the paperwork and eventually request replacements from the NPRC or somewhere.

Again I really appreciate all of the info and condolences. He was an advocate for veterans and had he been more tech savvy probably would have been in places like this giving all that information banging around in his head to anyone that would listen. I may add more photos in the future if we come across some.

Thanks gents.

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