a history lesson

I saw on the local news last night that the Vietnam Traveling Wall would be on display in a couple of towns over from us. I asked Senior if we could take the boys.
So, after leaving a mega gun show we drove over to the park where the wall was on display.

Very reverent site....

First thing was the items on display..Guns that were used, sleeping bags, clothing. You see in movies where the guys would write stuff on the side of their helmets, I saw it for real today. 
I got a chuckle from the Vet who was explaining the AK-47 to someone, the Vet was all up in arms about how Russians were really good at stealing designs from other people, and that in fact it was not Kalashnikov that created the AK but it was in fact the Germans.

Then there was the Traveling Wall Memorial:



Notes and pictures were laid on the grass of troops who lived in the area and died. One such item was an ole toy gun. The soldiers sister had placed it there and wrote a note to her brother, and was remembering when they use to play "Cops and Robbers"   Oh Man, I got weepy eyed.

This man in the red shirt, was a tour guide He explained the panels to the crowd.. Somethings I did not know, was that the wall begins and ends in the middle. The names on the first  panel marked the deaths in the first five months of fighting...the next panels represents the next five weeks...and so on, until one single panel represents the mortality rate in a 5 day span.

We headed over to another trailer with memorabilia and another Vet took the boys under his wing and gave them a verbal history lesson. He told us the story of the youngest known Marine who died in Vietnam. I was intrigued by the story, and a part of me found it hard to believe, so I came home and researched it, and indeed it was true.
 His name was Dan Bullock, and when he was 14 he altered his birth certificate and enlisted In Sept. 1968.
He made it through boot camp and in May 1969 was assigned as a rifleman 2nd Squad, 2nd Platoon, Fox Company 2nd battalion 5th Marines, 1st Marine Division. He died June 1969 when his platoon came under small arms fire one night. He was only 15.

RIP PFC Bullock.

This kid remains on my mind this evening. To put it in perspective,  when he enlisted he was only 5 years older then our 9 year old son.  As I think about this Marine, I wonder if Obama had a son would he have looked like PFC Bullock? Probably not.
This boys life could have taken so many other turns, but he knew at such a young age that he wanted to be a Marine. He fought bravely and along with over 58,000 other brave Americans he died for his country. The portrait of a Great American.