STORIES FROM OUR MEMBERS

 

"Lord, hold our troops in your loving hands. 
Protect them as they protect us.  Bless them
and their families for the selfless acts they
perform for us in our time of need.  I ask this
in the name of Jesus, our Lord and Savior.
Amen."

Reprinted from The Middletown Press

MIDDLETOWN — A well-known Vietnam veteran who has won countless awards will be honored next week at the Capitol for his commitment to members of the armed services and advocating for their rightful benefits.

American Legion Post 75 Commander Larry Riley is one of nine Connecticut Veterans Hall of Fame inductees, seven of whom are legionnaires. “A state award for doing something you love doing? That just knocked me off my feet,” he said.

“It blew me away” when he learned of the honor, Riley said. “People tell me, ‘You deserve it.’ But I don’t think I did all that much.” Still, Riley acknowledged, “It’s just amazing.”

Riley, who will be inducted Dec. 7, was the post’s first African-American leader. He was notified of his selection about a month ago. Tammy Marzik and his friend Karen Uberti, a member of the the city’s Jewish War Veterans, nominated him for the award.

The state hall of fame recognize current or former state residents who have worn the uniform of the nation’s armed forces, performed their military duties and then continued to contribute to community, state and nation in an exemplary manner. These outstanding contributions may, for example, be in the areas of professional, civic, veterans’ advocacy, or political or contributions over the life of the nominee, according to the organization.

“Everybody that goes into the Connecticut Veterans Hall of Fame has a military background. Generally speaking, it’s what you did after the military and what your commitment is to the community, and times you’ve gone above and beyond your service,” said fellow Vietnam veteran Phil Cacciola, who spent 30 years in the service. “Larry has been a role model for young men and women of color. We went through an awful lot coming back during that time, and we know that it’s not the reception young men and women should be getting today.”

In 2017, Cacciola, former American Legion commander, was the first Middletown resident to be inducted. Like Riley, his mission is to ensure each veteran is treated fairly and receives their due benefits.

“It’s a tough time for young men and women coming back from the war zone with jobs, family, children, school, PTSD,” Cacciola said. “They need all the support they can get. I think Larry and the guys we are associated with really carry that forward.”

Riley was co-project leader in the development of the commemorative mural installed in City Hall, which recognizes the 50th anniversary of the country’s participation in the Vietnam War in late 2016.

Riley said he feels very fortunate to be part of a veteran-friendly community in Middletown and the surrounding area.

“It makes it easier for us to do our job, and my job is to make sure veterans find out about the benefits they have coming, and nobody coming home from these recent wars has to go through what we went through coming back from Vietnam,” he said.

Returning soldiers commonly endured ill will. Many were called “baby killers,” spit upon and treated with disrespect.

“The stigma and all the names they called us, it was just horrible. It was horrible to come back. We didn’t talk about the war at all, and that hurt us because we had no way of venting, no place to go (for support),” Riley said.

Riley worked security for the state of Connecticut, then took a job in Washington, D.C., working with the U.S. Secret Service as part of the Explosive Detector Team, according to his nominators.

Ken McLellan, curator of the Greater Middletown Military Museum, called Riley very deserving.

“It doesn’t matter what color your skin is or where you were raised,” McLellan said. “If you served in the military, you are a veteran and that’s what matters. That’s what I really admire about Larry. He’s all over the place. He’s involved in everything.”

Riley was instrumental in helping get the baseball game concession stand at Palmer Field up and running, he said. Proceeds from the sale of snacks allow the Legion to buy uniforms and equipment for the players.

“The players and their families don’t have to pony up money in order to play baseball. With his work, with the coaches, along with Phil Cacciola, they’ve been able to expand to four teams,” McLellan said.

Middletown is distinguished by having a Council of Veterans, which has representation from every one of the city’s many veterans organizations, including the American Legion Post 206, Catholic War Veterans Post 1166, Veterans of the Vietnam War of Middletown, Veterans of Foreign Wars posts 583 and 1840 and Daughters of American Veterans Chapter 7.

“It gives us a good starting point so we’re all on the same page,” Riley said.

It is also home to the Greater Middletown Military Museum, expected to open after 13 years of effort, in early spring.

The council runs the city’s Memorial Day parade, and members are caretakers for various American flags flying across Middletown, repairing and replacing them when necessary.

During the two weeks preceding and following Veterans Day this year, Riley and other veterans visited about seven schools, talking to youth about the flag.

“It was just amazing,” he said. “Each year, it seems like more schools are getting added to our program. It also helps out the kids. There are not that many veterans in families anymore.”

Members of these groups also make sure veterans whose cremains are unclaimed are buried in the state cemetery in Middletown. Some families find the process of appealing to probate court too laborious and are grateful for help from local veterans who want their fellow soldiers’ remains laid to rest.

“We want to make sure when they bring them up to the cemetery that we have a bunch of veterans up there to send them off to make sure they’re not buried alone without family and friends,” Riley said.

The ceremony will be held Dec. 7 at 5 p.m. at the Legislative Office Building Atrium in Hartford. The event is free and open to the public.
 

The Coffelt Database of Vietnam casualties
http://www.coffeltdatabase.org/
 

First click on a state. When it opens, scroll down to the city and the names will appear. Then click on their names. It should show you a picture of the person, or at least their bio and medals.


This really is an amazing web site. Someone spent a lot of time and effort to create it.


I hope that everyone who receives this appreciates what those who served in Vietnam sacrificed for our country.


The link is a virtual wall of all those lost during the Vietnam war with the names, bio's and other information on our lost heroes. Those who remember that time frame, or perhaps lost friends or family can look them up on this site. Pass the link on to others, as many knew wonderful people whose names are listed.

THANK A VETERAN, TODAY! 
REMEMBER OUR...POW  MIA'S

Let us not forget, that...... since before 1776
and continuing until this very day........many brave young souls have fought and
died..... that we might have the freedom to celebrate, grill hotdogs and hamburger,
drink Budweiser and shoot fireworks, without a seconds thought....after all....it is
our right.  A right bought with their life's blood.


This is eleven minutes long.  Worth every second.  Patriots, get your hanky ready!
 
Folks,

Killed in action the week before, the body of Staff Sergeant First Class John C.
Beale was returned to Falcon Field in Peachtree City , Georgia , just south of
Atlanta , on June 11, 2009. The Henry County Police Department escorted the
procession to the funeral home in McDonough , Georgia . A simple notice in local
papers indicated the road route to be taken and the approximate time. This was
filmed during the procession by a State Trooper.


Nowadays one can be led to believe that America no longer respects honor and no
longer honors sacrifice outside the military. Be it known that there are many places
in this land where people still recognize the courage and impact of total
self-sacrifice. Georgia remains  one of those graceful places. The link below is a
short travelogue of that day's remarkable and painful journey. But only watch this
if you wish to have some of your faith in people restored. Please share widely.
 
http://blip.tv/play/AYGJ5h6YgmE


 

"WHAT IS A VIETNAM VETERAN?"

A college student posted a request on an internet news group asking
for personal narratives from the likes of us addressing the
question: "What is a Vietnam Veteran?" This is what I wrote back:

[Author Unknown]
------------ --------- --------- --------- --------- --------- -

Vietnam veterans are men and women. We are dead or alive, whole or
maimed, sane or haunted. We grew from our experiences or we were
destroyed by them or we struggle to find some place in between. We
lived through hell or we had a pleasant, if scary, adventure. We were
Army, Navy, Marines, Air Force, Red Cross, and civilians of all
sorts. Some of us enlisted to fight for God and Country, and some
were drafted. Some were gung-ho, and some went kicking and screaming.

Like veterans of all wars, we lived a tad bit--or a great bit--closer
to death than most people like to think about. If Vietnam vets differ
from others, perhaps it is primarily in the fact that many of us
never saw the enemy or recognized him or her. We heard gunfire and
mortar fire but rarely looked into enemy eyes. Those who did, like
folks who encounter close combat anywhere and anytime, are often
haunted for life by those eyes, those sounds, those electric fears
that ran between ourselves, our enemies, and the likelihood of death
for one of us. Or we get hard, calloused, tough. All in a day's work.
Life's a bitch then you die. But most of us remember and get twitchy,
worried, sad.

We are crazies dressed in cammo, wide-eyed, wary, homeless, and
drunk. We are Brooks Brothers suit wearers, doing deals downtown. We
are housewives, grandmothers, and church deacons. We are college
professors engaged in the rational pursuit of the truth about the
history or politics or culture of the Vietnam experience. And we are
sleepless. Often sleepless.

We pushed paper; we pushed shovels. We drove jeeps, operated
bulldozers, built bridges; we toted machine guns through dense brush,
deep paddy, and thorn scrub. We lived on buffalo milk, fish heads and
rice. Or C-rations. Or steaks and Budweiser. We did our time in high
mountains drenched by endless monsoon rains or on the dry plains or
on muddy rivers or at the most beautiful beaches in the world.

We wore berets, bandanas, flop hats, and steel pots. Flak jackets,
canvas, rash and rot. We ate cloroquine and got malaria anyway. We
got shots constantly but have diseases nobody can diagnose. We spent
our nights on cots or shivering in foxholes filled with waist-high
water or lying still on cold wet ground, our eyes imagining Charlie
behind every bamboo blade. Or we slept in hotel beds in Saigon or
barracks in Thailand or in cramped ships' berths at sea.

We feared we would die or we feared we would kill. We simply feared,
and often we still do. We hate the war or believe it was the best
thing that ever happened to us. We blame Uncle Sam or Uncle Ho and
their minions and secretaries and apologists for every wart or cough
or tic of an eye. We wonder if Agent Orange got us.

Mostly--and this I believe with all my heart--mostly, we wish we had
not been so alone. Some of us went with units; but many, probably
most of us, were civilians one day, jerked up out of "the world,"
shaved, barked at, insulted, humiliated, de-egoized and taught to
kill, to fix radios, to drive trucks. We went, put in our time, and
were equally ungraciously plucked out of the morass and placed back
in the real world. But now we smoked dope, shot skag, or drank
heavily. Our wives or husbands seemed distant and strange. Our
friends wanted to know if we shot anybody.

And life went on, had been going on, as if we hadn't been there, as
if Vietnam was a topic of political conversation or college protest
or news copy, not a matter of life and death for tens of thousands.

Vietnam vets are people just like you. We served our country, proudly
or reluctantly or ambivalently. What makes us different--what makes
us Vietnam vets--is something we understand, but we are afraid nobody
else will. But we appreciate your asking.

Vietnam veterans are white, black, beige and shades of gray; but in
comparison with our numbers in the "real world," we were more likely
black. Our ancestors came from Africa, from Europe, and China. Or
they crossed the Bering Sea Land Bridge in the last Ice Age and
formed the nations of American Indians, built pyramids in Mexico, or
farmed acres of corn on the banks of Chesapeake Bay. We had names
like Rodriguez and Stein and Smith and Kowalski. We were Americans,
Australians, Canadians, and Koreans; most Vietnam veterans are
Vietnamese.

We were farmers, students, mechanics, steelworkers, nurses, and
priests when the call came that changed us all forever. We had dreams
and plans, and they all had to change...or wait. We were daughters
and sons, lovers and poets, beatniks and philosophers, convicts and
lawyers. We were rich and poor but mostly poor. We were educated or
not, mostly not. We grew up in slums, in shacks, in duplexes, and
bungalows and houseboats and hooches and ranches. We were cowards
and heroes. Sometimes we were cowards one moment and heroes the next.

Many of us have never seen Vietnam. We waited at home for those we
loved. And for some of us, our worst fears were realized. For others,
our loved ones came back but never would be the same.

We came home and marched in protest marches, sucked in tear gas, and
shrieked our anger and horror for all to hear. Or we sat alone in
small rooms, in VA hospital wards, in places where only the crazy
ever go. We are Republicans, Democrats, Socialists, and Confucians
and Buddhists and Atheists--though as usually is the case, even the
atheists among us sometimes prayed to get out of there alive.

We are hungry, and we are sated, full of life or clinging to death.
We are injured, and we are curers, despairing and hopeful, loved or
lost. We got too old too quickly, but some of us have never grown up.
We want, desparately, to go back, to heal wounds, revisit the sites
of our horror. Or we want never to see that place again, to bury it,
its memories, its meaning. We want to forget, and we wish we could
remember.

Despite our differences, we have so much in common. There are few of
us who don't know how to cry, though we often do it alone when nobody
will ask "what's wrong?" We're afraid we might have to answer.

Adam, if you want to know what a Vietnam veteran is, get in your car
next weekend or cage a friend with a car to drive you. Go to
Washington. Go to the Wall. It's going to be Veterans Day weekend.
There will be hundreds there...no, thousands. Watch them. Listen to
them. I'll be there. Come touch the Wall with us. Rejoice a bit. Cry
a bit. No, cry a lot. I will. I'm a Vietnam Veteran; and, after 30
years, I think I am beginning to understand what that means.

Author Unknown
 

Replacing Military Records

Have you lost important military records and don't know how to replace them?
Learn what to do if you lose your discharge, separation, or other papers. 
If discharge or separation papers are lost, duplicate copies may be obtained by contacting the: 

National Personnel Records Center, Military Personnel Records 
9700 Page Blvd., St. Louis, MO 63132- 5100

Specify that a duplicate separation document or discharge is needed. The veteran's full name should be printed or typed so that it can be read
clearly, but the request must also contain the signature of the veteran or the signature of the next of kin, if the veteran is deceased. Include
branch of service, service number or Social Security number and exact or approximate dates and years of service. Use Standard Form 180, "Request
Pertaining To Military Records," available from our site (see instructions below), VA offices or at the VA forms web site
http://www.va.gov/vaforms  It is not necessary to request a duplicate copy of a veteran's discharge or
separation papers solely for the purpose of filing a claim for VA benefits.

Standard Form 180 and Replacing Records Fortunately, the paperwork involved in requesting records replacement is
relatively simple. The process is as follows:

First, get a copy of Standard Form 180
http://www.archives.gov/research_room/obtain_copies/standard_form_180.pdf ,
Request For Military Records.
http://www.archives.gov/research/order/standard-form-180.pdf

It is not necessary to request a duplicate copy of a veteran's discharge
or separation papers solely for the purpose of filing a claim for VA
benefits. 
*        Remember to either type or print on the form. 
*        Fill in the individual's name, social security number, and date and place of birth in section 1, blocks 1 through 4. 
*        Provide the dates of service in the applicable spaces in section 1, block 5. 
*        Indicate whether or not the individual is deceased in section 1, block 6. 
*        Indicate whether or not the person retired from the military in section 1, block 7. 
*        In section 2, indicate which medals need to be replaced. 
*        Record a return address and then sign section 3. Only the service member, guardian, or next of kin may sign this form. 
*        If possible, include a copy of the discharge or separation document, WDAGO Form 53-55 or DD Form 214. 
*        Mail the completed form and supplementary documents to the appropriate address, as detailed on the back of SF 180. 
The National Archives and Records Administration receives many requests, and a response may take six months or more. If complete information
about the veteran's service is furnished on the application, VA will obtain verification of service from the National Personnel Records
Center or the service department concerned. In a medical emergency, information from a veteran's records may be obtained by phoning the
appropriate service:

Army, 314-538-4261 
Air Force, 314- 538-4243 
Navy, Marine Corps or Coast Guard, 314-538-4141

Submitted by:  Rich Couturect: Honor is alive and well...

The Third Infantry Regiment at Fort Myer has the responsibility for

providing ceremonial units and honor guards for state occasions, White

House social functions, public celebrations and interments at Arlington

National Cemetery......and for standing a very formal sentry watch at the

Tombs of the Unknowns. The public is familiar with the precision of what 

is called, "walking post" at the Tombs.

There are roped off galleries where visitors can form to observe the

troopers and their measured step and almost mechanical silent rifle

shoulder changes. They are relieved every hour in a very formal drill 

that has to be seen to believe. Some people think that when the cemetery is

closed to the public in the evening that this show stops. First, to the 

men who are dedicated to this work, it is no show.....it is a "charge of

honor".

The formality and precision continues uninterrupted all night. During the

nighttime, the drill of relief and the measured step of the on duty 

sentry remain unchanged from the daylight hours. To these men, these special

men, the continuity of this post is the key to the respect shown to these

honored dead, symbolic of all American unaccounted for and American 

combat dead. The steady rhythmic step in rain, sleet, snow, hail, hot,

cold...bitter cold, is uninterrupted. It is the important part of the 

honor shown.

Last night while you were sleeping, the teeth of hurricane Isabel came

through this area and tore hell out of everything. We have thousands of

trees down, power outages, traffic signals out, roads filled with down

limbs and "gear adrift" debris. We have flooding.....and the place looks

like it has been the impact area of an off shore bombardment.

The Regimental Commander of the U.S. Third Infantry sent word to the 

night time sentry detail to secure the post and seek shelter from the high 

winds, to ensure their personal safety. THEY DISOBEYED THE ORDER.

During winds that turned over vehicles and turned debris into 

projectiles, the measured step continued. One fellow said "I've got buddies

getting shot at in Iraq who would kick my butt if word got to them that we

let them down. I sure as hell have no intention of spending my Army career

being known as the god-damn idiot who couldn't stand a little light breeze

and shirked his duty." Then he said something in response to a female

reporter's question regarding silly purposeless personal risk, "I 

wouldn't expect you to understand. It's an enlisted man's thing."

God bless the rascal! In a time in our nation's history when spin and 

total bullshit seems to have become the accepted coin-of-the-realm, there

beat hearts, the enlisted hearts we all knew and were so damn proud to be a 

part of.....that fully understand that devotion to duty is not a part time

occupation. While we slept, we were represented by some fine men who 

fully understood their post orders and proudly went about their assigned

responsibilities unseen, unrecognized and in the finest tradition of the

American enlisted man.

Release No. 06-01-03
June 5, 2003

NPRC initiates online records request procedures

The National Personnel Records Center is working to make it easier for
veterans with computers and Internet access to obtain copies of
documents from their military files.

Military veterans and the next of kin of deceased former military
members may now use  a new online military personnel records system to request
documents.  Other individuals with a need for documents must still
complete the Standard Form 180 which can be downloaded from the online web site.

The new web-based application was designed to provide better service
on these requests by eliminating the records center's mailroom processing
time. Also, because the requester will be asked to supply all information
essential for NPRC to process the request, delays that normally occur
when NPRC has to ask veterans for additional information will be minimized.

Veterans and next of kin may access this application at
http://vetrecs.archives.gov   http://vetrecs.archives.gov. Please note
there is no requirement to type "www" in front of the web address.

NEWS RELEASE from the United States Department of Defense

 

Agent Orange Data

3/8/98