Bill Shugarts served with the Americal Division in charge of running resupply convoys to all forward firebases in I corps 1969-70…
These days Bill is a Yellow Hat volunteer at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington DC and he is going to tell us some interesting stories and facts from The Wall…
TRANSCRIPT – Transcript and Subtitles are generated automatically by YouTube and may contain errors.
okay good evening vietnam
live from lz bunker this is the veterans
live show
i’m your host ronnie yembrus i serve at
101st airborne division
in vietnam from 1967 to 1968
december tonight’s guest is bill
shugats from spotsylvania virginia
uh and he served with the americal
division bill served
he was with the american division in 69
70.
he was in charge of running resupply
convoys to all forward fire bases in
i-corps
terrific job these days bill is a yellow
hat
volunteer at the vietnam veterans
memorial in washington d.c
and he’s going to tell us some
interesting stories and facts from the
wall
those are the guys when you need to know
where you got to go
when you’re at the wall they take care
of you
we’ll speak this bill in a few moments
but first i’d like to let you all know
that
the program is brought to you by full
never forgotten
vietnam memorials in the usa fallen
never forgotten is the
vietnam veterans memorial book a tribute
to those who
never made it home from vietnam visit
for
neverforgotten.com for more information
or to purchase your copy
let’s go to the timeline
okay this date in the war in vietnam
june 16 1965 robert mcnamara announces
that 21 000 more
u.s troops are to be sent to vietnam he
also claimed that it was
not known that the north vietnamese
regular troops have begun to infiltrate
south vietnam
the number one song on june 16th 1965
was
i can’t help myself by the four tops i
must say that was my best song in high
school
and the best group this day in the
vietnam war june 16
1970 congress turns down and to
end the war proposals as the senate
refuses twice
to set a vietnam troop withdrawal
decline
the number one song on june 16th 1970
was a long and winding road by the
beatles
let’s go to the photo segment
okay first photo lorenzo jr gonna take
more than a bar by to stop these guys
amen to that
well okay next
picture jimmy jennifer clark
i really appreciate the acceptance to
the group my late father served with the
11th
engineer battalion of the third marine
division in 67-68
i have several of his photos to post go
with it man
go with it semper fi
stuart beanie looking for vietnam era
photos of mighty mouse
rockets boxes tubes etc anything to help
us improve our display around the marine
ui project thank you wow it looks like
uh
the big round thing on the bottom with
those three six seven eight
three four five six seven seven holes in
it look like a rocket launcher from a uh
ue there you go okay
next picture danny gomez
getting on my freedom bird to the world
and those asses bumped me in the
philippines
put me on a c-130 and landed in seatac
it sucked hey you got home man you know
what i mean
you didn’t fly american airlines or pan
am or something but
or tiger airways but there you go
that’s it going good for you kevin bowie
thank you for your service ladies happy
women’s veterans day god bless okay
yeah the women are no combat women
but nurses uh
what else did they do doctors nurses uh
doughnut dollies the women’s did
and uh this helped the morale of the
troops at
thank you ladies okay
boon preston perlman artwork from the
namm that’s a page on vietnam
from our friend
no uh okay here we go uh gone
are the days of rain and heat chills
fatigue and rotting feet
days of thunder and swollen streams
still never finding solace
in our dreams upon returning home we
stood alone
in the land where we felt we didn’t
belong
and to this day we still feel the pain
and that illness caused by orange rain
we walked and crawled on poison ground
absorbed
a killer that never uttered a sound
the demon mocked us and claimed our
souls and with a devilish grid
said welcome home with a devilish grin
said welcome home rich boone preston
thank you for the depth of that richard
appreciate it
okay our card of the day from the
vietnam trading
dart flip cards collection is
convoys uh we’re going to be talking
about convoys here’s some
vietnamese convoys north vietnamese
converse and a ho chi minh trail
that actually went through laos as you
see and cambodia
into south vietnam so
the north vietnamese relied heavily on
the ho chi minh trail for transport of
their troops supplies into south
vietnam the trail of tangled camouflage
footprint
paths dirt roads and river crossings
covered a 6
000 mile network reaching 300 miles
southward through cambodia into south
vietnam
amazing amazing tactics
okay let’s bring our guest in tonight
yellow hat volunteer bill shoe guards
hey bill hi ronnie how are you nice to
meet you
thank you sir tell us where you’re from
uh originally from philadelphia i was
raised in philadelphia on the oldest of
five and uh
my dad served in world war ii my
grandfather in world war one
okay so tell us about your time with the
american division
yeah i was um i enlisted after college
and uh
i was in vietnam in 6970
uh with the american my background i was
trained uh
basic infantry armor tanks i like tanks
i did did well with it
uh yeah that’s us on a convoy but
anyway tanks and then they consolidated
the ocs’s i went to a little college in
ohio
and uh they took in 68 they consolidated
the ocs
so the army basically said we’re going
to
go from branch ocs’s to three
infantry at fort benning artillery at
fort sill
and then everybody else came to belvoir
and we all got trained up as combat
engineers
and then after after combat engineering
then i got
uh branch training transportation at uh
fort eustis
and then sent back out to fort knox
and then from fort knox back to eustis
oh wow
you’ve been all over the world there my
goodness and then i was
they told me i was going to be a port
operations officer
so i learned how to load load and unload
ships
and then when i got orders from vietnam
i reported in country
camron bay and uh i’m a first lieutenant
at that point
and uh the processing depot said
lieutenant you’re in the wrong place
i said no i’m a port operations guy i do
ports and
you know cargo and ships and all that on
transportation
he said now your order is you need to go
up to the americal i said well where is
that he said well you got to get a
c130 hop and go north and i said well
what’s the americal and he said well
it’s a
23rd infantry division and you’re gonna
you’re gonna go up
and uh do whatever so i reported and
they had a combat center and
i had three days in the combat center so
that you you may have had that two and a
hundred first so you got acclimated to
the
you know to the temperatures and the
climate and the smell okay
let me ask you let me ask you a question
about that picture could you back up
that picture
yeah people in front of that big truck
behind you they got little scouts
running with you or what
no those are people in there in the
village yeah so they just
join the parade yeah they just walk
along the road
yeah i know we used to have kids do that
we used to throw candy to them they used
to kill each other
there was a convoy going west of one of
the one of the western
forward fire bases so ronnie we would
run up and down highway one in 69
it was uh relatively safe although we
would get ambushed
some but the tactical convoys every
three days we would run west to the
firebases
so those were the hairy ones we would
have helicopter gunship cover
jet airplanes on call marines in the
cereals
the columns we had vehicles that the
convoys were generally anywhere from
30 to 60 vehicles and uh
you had to plan all that coordinate it
you had to have all your call signs your
call signals and then
i would go with a kernel and fly command
and control over these convoys
where did you fight away what kind of
supplies was you what was your main
supply
oh everything we did everything we we
were food ammo
water all of them
all of it we everything you grunts had
we
we did everything everything we were we
were the
we were the main support battalion for
the whole division so our division was
22
000 troops at its height we had three
combat brigades
and then we had all this stuff attached
to it that’s great thank you for that
support we needed that
especially coming up the helicopters in
the field okay what led you
to become a yellow hat volunteer at the
vietnam wall
in washington yeah it’s a good question
it’s a gentleman by the name of jan
scruggs that had the vision to do the
memorial
so in 2003 i lost my first wife to
horrible cancer
i had gone to the wall because i was
doing international business i was an
executive at alcoa at that point
and i thought it would be a good idea to
figure out how to trade with vietnam we
had normalized relationships with the
vietnam
so anyway i called up jan scruggs and he
didn’t know me from adam and he said
come up and talk to me
so then he said to me what are you doing
february of 2004
and i said i don’t know i’ve got to find
something to do and i’m
58 years old and and lost a wife and
have two kids at that point and so
anyway jan said
well i’m taking some volunteers back to
vietnam
and i said what’s a volunteer and he
said well these are people that work at
the wall that help people
locate names and help people talk about
the war and help with all the
information that you need
and help people uh you know grieve and
i went to vietnam with jan and
uh there’s five guys and i’ll mention
them by name
ron warstall mike cole charlie hartunian
red flagel and that is that the four
that’s four yeah okay
and uh we we we bonded
and uh so anyway they all said to me red
and charlie and
uh you know and mike
and ron those four it was those four and
me
and they said to me what are you going
to do now and why don’t you be a
volunteer and i said i don’t know what
that is so
they were the ones that got me started
and ron it changed my life and honest to
god changed my life it sounds corny but
it really did
and i was terrified to go back and i
went back in the company of veterans so
it was wonderful
and then i started volunteering in 2007
and i was trained up by leroy lawson god
bless his soul he’s deceased
we’ve lost three or four good volunteers
wonderful
wonderful people this year so
i’ve been doing it since 2007. uh it’s a
labor of love
wow 14 years already that’s crazy yeah
and it’s a family i mean we’re a family
and the guy that i’ll mention too is a
gentleman but there we are that’s that’s
memorial day that’s that was
last uh that was uh you know the 31st of
uh
of may and that’s the that’s the group
that worked uh this past memorial day
and
what’s really cool about it is is that
we’ve been we’ve been coveted we’ve been
we hadn’t haven’t been able to work for
about a year and a half so
this was our homecoming we all came back
together
and uh some of the guys weren’t able to
join us and they will later on so
uh that’s great it’s good good group of
people
because i see here i hear you have a few
stories to tell about your time
with your yellow hat at the wall yeah
it’s uh there’s a book ronnie it’s
called wall magic i’ll show it to you
okay
there it is okay so what this is
is it’s an outgrowth anybody that works
at the wall tell you this and you know
this you’ve visited it many times
there’s a story anybody that visits the
wall has a story
and uh people come from all over the
world
so you know the the main question they
ask is how many names are on the wall
well 58
281 well you know then you get into
talking about the names and where
they’re from and all that sort of thing
so one of the things you learn as a wall
volunteer
which i don’t do well i talk too much
but uh what you should do
is you ask you can fool me
yeah yeah yeah yes you ask a leading
question
and then you shut up and let them talk
right so i’m going to tell you three
stories okay
how much how much time do i have three
minutes
i’ll take it i’ll take whatever you give
me okay so uh
this is this these are my three go-to
stories and i make talks to school
groups
the first one this is a day like a
tuesday
and a gentleman had come up and he had a
a booty hat
on a shirt that had peace signs all over
the peace buckle there he is
and he’s got an artificial arm
and he says to me the question we get
all the time and we’re
in a yellow uniform like i have on
tonight for this show
he said do you work here and i said yes
i do can i help you
and he said well what do you what what
happens to the things that are left at
the wall
and i said i said well the things that
are left at the wall are collected by
the rangers and we volunteers
and i said they go over to a collection
of artifacts
uh that’s been ongoing since 1982 when
they dedicated the memorial
and they go to a warehouse and they’re
cataloged and archived and all that
so he seemed satisfied with that and he
said well i’d like to leave something
and he said would you watch it i said
sure so
he walks down to the apex of the wall
and proceeds to take his arm off
and i said i and i’m a camera guy i i’m
a photographer
so i have to have my little camera it
doesn’t matter what kind of camera just
whatever works so i took a took
a picture on what you showed on the
screen and
i said to him uh if if you don’t mind
may i take a picture he said sure
and i said well what’s special about
this uh
and so he told me the story and you see
it you see the papers inside his arm
uh that’s talking about two sons and
they were uh
our brothers one was his brother and he
was combat wounded in vietnam so
anyway ronnie he said to me i don’t need
this arm anymore well i didn’t ask the
follow-on question which is why
you don’t need it but i was sensitive to
that so he walked away and that was
that was the end of it and i took a
picture of it so
that’s the one story the second story is
a little more unusual
well this is a the arm was unusual yeah
more unusual than
the guy well the other one was
from my perspective was it just shows
you how
how you need to listen so uh this is
another
sunny morning and i’m standing at the
wall at the apex and i’ve got my
little fanny pack on and i’m talking and
a gentleman walks up and he’s got gray
hair like me and
he’s telling me about how he trained
nurses in vietnam and he knew the
american
he knew the surgical hospital blah blah
blah his name was frank something
so we’re talking well while we’re
talking this young
you know this middle-aged vietnamese guy
comes up
and ethnically yeah there he is you’re
recognizing his name is dow d-a-o
so ronnie dow comes up and he says the
normal question and he speaks pretty
good english and he said
you know do you work here i said yes and
he said were you a soldier and
i said yes i was a soldier in vietnam so
the question you asked and the question
i asked i said he said i was too
so me dummy bill here assuming that he
was uh
an arvin you know the arvind that we
worked us
arvin unit do you work with or did you
work with
and he smiled and he shook his head and
he said no i was vc
so that that was the first time i ever
met uh a vc
uh and uh he wanted my card
and i have a little card i carried and
then he gave me his car
and his card said he was a gm dock which
is in vietnamese as a president
and he owned his own little trading
company so he was here for a convention
so i we exchanged cards i didn’t think
anything of it
i emailed jan scruggs and i said what
the hell’s going on do you have a
vc convention going on in d.c and
[Music]
jan started laughing and he said well
you’re comrades now
so so the follow-on story and this is
this is the healing power of the wall
and each story is uniquely different
that’s the whole point of this book
and they go from the emotional to the
some of the
the weird stuff and uh in this situation
dal
started emailing me he’s a photographer
and then he wanted to know
in his email if i was the guy that shot
him
and i said well when we when when were
you shot he said in 1971 i said no
it wasn’t me i was home by then tell him
it was
it was you it was ronnie okay you you
can claim it
no thanks the bottom line before you
yeah okay so that the bottom line is is
dao
is a world-class consummate photographer
who’s all over vietnam he’s a retired
general believe it or not
and uh we are friends my my two kids my
son and daughter todd and emily
met him in hanoi vietnam when we were
there for veterans delegation in
215 so that’s the those are the two
unusual ones and then the third one and
i’ll make this quick
um is another day and
a lady comes up to me and her husband’s
with her and the lady’s about the size
of my wife now margie and the lady’s got
she’s she’s coming up and she comes up
with her
uh pretty aggressive and you know the
space you generally have that human
space
between talking to people well she’s up
in my face
and she’s about five foot four and she’s
got her fist
closed whoa and she comes up like this
with her fist closed
pointing at me and she doesn’t hit me
but she’s she’s in my space
and she says to me what is it about you
americans
and i said excuse me i took a step back
and she came then she came again towards
me
in my space again and she says what is
it about you americans you’re
willing to go anywhere in the world to
defend anybody else’s freedom
and why is that and she really wanted to
know
in her husband that question must have
shocked you it did i backed it away
yeah you threw me that’s crazy that’s
great yeah
shocked me i backed away and her
husband’s hanging back and her husband
doesn’t want any part of this
conversation
so anyway i said well i’ll tell you uh i
don’t have any official national park
service answer
or an official volunteer answer but i
said i’ll give you my own and i said
basically
other than our families our families as
americans the most important thing at
least to me
and i could say some of the you know the
cynical stuff
but to me the most important thing to me
is is your is your family
and i said the second most important
thing to any american is freedom
and i said we believe that everybody
should have those opportunities i said
that’s what we’re about as americans
and she said well why why why do you
have that attitude or that position
i said well i think it’s our founding
fathers it’s in our dna one could argue
it’s our
judeo-christian background all that
stuff so it seemed to satisfy her well
then ronnie this is
the icing so she said she came back in
my space
and and and and uh more
more normal and she said well i just
want to tell you
we sincerely admire you americans and
i felt about 10 feet tall that surprised
you
yeah it did and i said and what we what
we learn as docents to do
is is when you do what i call the yakity
yak you always ask that you know you ask
people where they’re from whether
you ask out on the front end or the back
end but so i said if you don’t mind me
asking man where are you from
she says israel so that’s sort of that
sort of completes the circle as to why
she had that view
that’s right so um the stories uh
you know i can go on and on and on every
one of us out of the 50 or 60 of us
those folks you’d see in the picture
uh oh you’ve got nancy simori she said
was it was a donut dolly you’ve got the
diane carlson evanson a lady that did
the vietnam memoir i mean the
women’s memorial at the at the vietnam
memorial and
i mean you know it’s got five major
components it’s got the wall
you know designed by mile in and uh you
know 58
281 and then you’ve got the flagpole
then you’ve got the three soldiers
statue and then the women’s memorial and
then
the thing that’s more important to most
of us now is the in-memory
plaque and jim knotts the ceo of vvmf
if anybody’s listening if you want to
check any of this out
just go on vvmf.org
and it’s all there and then now we’re
doing
stories and podcasts and archival
history
and ceremonies and the next big ceremony
is father’s day
and and uh and we’re back on i mean
we’re back to work now so it’s it’s good
okay uh you stole some of my thunder by
i was going to ask you about the
strangest thing you ever saw left at the
wall so obviously
that came up already the guy’s arm right
okay have you ever seen any
i mean there’s a lot of weeping and
gnashing
and tears and
any violence not that i’ve seen
uh it there’s some um
yeah i should say heated arguments maybe
even you know what i mean like
just people getting out of control
sometimes
uh one of the things yeah one of the
things you learn is
you you try as best you can not to be
political
right and then you’ve got in any docent
will tell you this
you know i work at the army museum now
and we were trained up by the by the
army in the national park service
training which is very good
and uh one of the things they teach in
interpreting is
you don’t go there if somebody and then
you’ve got folks that
that think they know more than you do
you just let them talk all you do is
just let them talk
and uh and then you know you put a word
in edgewise
lots of times people don’t want to talk
and you just you learn to back away
and even though you you offer to help
them
not everybody wants help they just want
to go there and be quiet
where they want to go and they want to
rub a name or they want to touch a name
or they want to
leave something so it’s it you’ve got it
it’s intuitive you learn that stuff over
time
and all of us have learned learned it
over time
and uh it it’s a it it’s it’s the
probably the most special memorial in dc
oh yeah absolutely yeah yeah it’s the
most visited
uh it’s it’s got all that angst and all
that healing and all that
stuff and uh most most of the uh
people uh or what percentage maybe have
kin folk on the wall versus for just
visitors
yeah what’s happening now and when you
do
rubbings you get sometimes you get
somebody that’s the
the son or daughter of the person on the
wall or the brother
or the sister or the mother and that the
gold star people are just amazing uh
whether they’re wives or mothers or
sisters or brothers
yeah so anyway
yeah that’s a uh uh you know when you
find a uh
there we go talking about i think
this is the most sought after thing on
the wall
yeah right this is my rt my
my rto the opportunity who got killed
and these two guys right here there you
go
yeah well thorn and edward armstrong we
had a uh
we got 13 names on one
i think it’s 60 uh 45 east
46 46 uh killed in a friendly you know
nine more rounds fell short on our
company and uh
this is now where do these come from you
carry these with you
yeah we all do uh okay yeah so
what and and then we have one of the
things we’re trained up we have special
graphites that we use so
right the park service will give you a
little number two pencil
it works fine but what we have is better
what you have there you must have
somebody
you somebody must have given you a
graphite those are pretty good
i come prepared yeah a cup of pan
yeah it looks like uh well there’s a lot
so yeah it’s very informative too about
yeah it will be the dates
and the panel which is very interesting
if you could get that up close see there
yeah
yes sir that’s right good man there you
go okay
but that’s uh when i see people doing
that and even people lifting it
maybe grandchildren or their own kid up
to talk through their bad
yeah part of your grandchildren lifting
up to to get down
at the bottom there yeah i need to yeah
i need to mention her when you’re
talking about rubbings there’s a lady
her name is ann marie emmett
and god bless her she is uh
close to 90. i i don’t know exactly
but she’ll go up and down the ladder
still and people will mail in names and
want rubbings
and that lady will still do them she’s
one of our longer serving volunteers so
that’s great good for her yeah you want
to rub and ask for anne marie
you got it okay um so we all did that so
good for you how long are you going to
do this
martin how long are you going to do this
ah toy dog okay how many volunteers are
there
how many yellow hats are there well
there’s there’s about 60 of us that uh
there’s actually a
you know the yellow hats are really the
whole park service so we’re what’s known
as vips
volunteers in parks but the the ones
that focus on vietnam or there’s 50 or
60 of us
okay and how long is your tour of the
the daily tour
oh you can you could you can pretty much
adjust your hours what you want alan
mccabe the guy that does this
that did this sheet and all this all
this information
alan works on weekends and he’s he’s the
most
knowledgeable one of the bunch of us i
think and uh
everybody’s got different knowledge
there’s no doubt about it but like dude
it’s like a six six hour shift you do
eight hour shift ten hour shift what you
know
no no you you you do a half a day or
or a day or and that where you see all
of us where you see
a lot of us are the special events where
we work the special events so
you know you’re you’re what you do is
you work the you know memorial day
and uh uh your father’s day
those kind of things right okay veterans
day
yeah you’re better what the july yeah
4th of july crowded it is for the
fireworks yeah
wow there’s a cycle there’s a cycle to
the wall ronnie it’s
it’s basically the season you know it’s
seasonal well you got
you got the school although there’s not
it’s it’s going to crack up now it’s
starting to get active
but it’s a cycle the school school
groups start in the spring
you follow cherry blossom festival and
then you get some and then from there on
out through october you’re busy
okay yeah and then and and then november
is your veteran’s day and then
oh the other thing i forgot to tell you
about we do a christmas tree ceremony
we volunteers we yellow hat volunteers
and
that’s on vvmf.org website we did a
virtual ceremony this year kelly and
john ryan ran it and
we had the quintet from the army band
and and the bugler and
you know jim knotts and the vvmf staff
are wonderful
do they put a tree up oh yeah
way above above that well it’s at the
apex
it’s right yeah yeah on the top
no no down below down below on the grass
yeah oh
okay oh in the grass okay yeah on the
front of the wall
well it’s in front but it’s at the apex
in front but it’s out
it’s out from the uh from the not
blocking any names
oh no no right that’s what i meant okay
good okay
well uh what do you think man what else
we got
all right we got questions and answers
coming up oh i can’t handle questions
uh spotsylvania va hang on thank you
okay we’re back with bill shugats let’s
have our first
question or comment
dave shifflet take care of vietnam
veterans been there done that
glad to be back home like you okay u.s
you got it thank you dave
marie kennemur hi marie please don’t
forget this weekend is father’s day
the rose is at the wall and you still
can get in honoring a kia who has no one
left to honor them because their
families are gone
tell us a little bit about that
yeah we we put roses at the wall to
honor the families and uh
it’s it’s it’s emotional it’s special um
it’s been ongoing for years and it’s a
good program
do they have live feeds coming from
there for this kind of stuff
we did it’ll be interesting to see this
year ronnie because it’s been covered
you know things shut down so
yeah yeah i agree we’ll see what happens
uh
when we did the memorial day you were
there right yes
yeah i met you and your son and uh
that’s how i got into this but
yeah it it’s we’re feeling our way back
and you saw jim we’re excited to be back
uh it was a limited venue we had maybe
five six hundred folks and
normally we’ll have uh two or three
thousand yeah
on memorial day okay next question or
comment a photo
what do we got here paul james i was
82nd
and 5th special forces group thank you
mr paul
james airport all the way to you thank
you next comment
marie kennemur bill sugars i guess you
know
julianna baylock and of course nuts
jim knotts they are beautiful
relationships are built from the people
that work the wall
because i have been touched by juliana
how’s that
yeah they’re those are great people uh
juliana’s the one that that put the
you know and put the stories together
she’s done a lot of good stuff and
and jim is our leader now so those are
those are your those are the that’s part
of the vvmf staff
it’s great we know them all they’re all
good you got people coming in writing in
from all over the country too how about
that
wow there you go next one what do we got
next are you airborne
how many volunteers are at the wall
yeah there’s 50 to 60
okay and that
yeah and what’s the most you you have
basically
on a shift 10 20 15.
well when you have bidding day memorial
day weekend
yeah when you do the big events like
memorial day and veterans day
you know you’ll see like that picture
there’s 25 or 30 of us
oh okay wow and sometimes 40. and then
we do
something else ronnie we do the lady
that put all this together was uh
she’s a dear lady too and holly rotundy
is her name and she’s the
she’s the leader of the world war ii
memorial
so what we do red and charlie and mike
and me and the guys will go down and
help her
at world war ii so uh and then there’s
other yellow hats there that are world
war ii that specialize in world war ii
memorials there’s some yellow hats that
specialize at korea
so yeah right yeah okay we’re all over
the national mall
what what’s the next map what do you got
here we go
yes there’s supposed to be a facebook
live feed of this event coming up
the rose derosa
presentation
okay so well okay there you go next
uh stephen ollie oliver hi from ex
royal new zealand infantry regiment
soldier very good
governor heaps of vets here yeah thank
you for the new zealanders
the australians ronnie i got son-in-law
from new zealand
oh really yeah my youngest granddaughter
lives in new zealand
there you go yeah
all right okay zeke fabric do you know
around how many names were ordered to
add it to the wall this year
yeah there were three um
i can uh well it’s in the program here
but uh yeah the number now and we we we
have we changed this up the number now
58 281 is what we talk about and
uh you know the the status on the wall
the diamond is the
is the dead unfortunately and then the
the plus is the unknown and
right and some of those have been found
so and then i had an experience i mean
uh twice now i’ve seen the joint tests
uh we had briefings by them in hanoi and
they continue to try to find our debt
and you know at this point there’s a
little less than uh
well 1500 that still haven’t been found
wow
that’s a big accomplishment from before
they were from from day one to today
yeah it’s been ongoing for years yeah
okay next one marie i have a
marie kenmore i have a rubbing for 3w
3w7
27 line janelle laverne
chastang this is my husband’s door
gunner
when they crashed he lost one of his own
crew it was very emotional understanding
what my husband went through
the wall has really impressed me when my
father took me to remember friends he
met
when he was there for two years in
vietnam you all do a great job thank you
for your service
thank you that’s nice yes thank you
marie
and all you airport says here what about
the new vietnam veterans memorial wall
mobile phone app uh
i don’t know you you gotta talk to jim
nuts and
those folks uh okay they’re working on
an app
and that’s that’s at the vietnam
veterans memorial fund uh what is that
the vpn
vpvmf.org and i think they have that i
i there there’s a what’s neat about now
this is really neat because you’re able
to to go on your phone
go to that website vbfmf.org
and you’re able to call up anybody
that’s on the wall
and they have pictures and a back story
no kidding
yeah and that that that took years to
build
and it was completed this past year
and uh it’s it’s exciting because
you’re able to to go look up a name
there
the way to find names on the wall we
have directories there are those stands
there’s
you know three like three four
directories
and the pages get torn and all that sort
of thing so what the best thing to do is
to
go look on your phone and go look at the
app and go look at vbmf.org and
and look up at the uh the profiles and
then yeah
that book was the only thing for years
and years and years
yeah the book on the stand right
underneath there right
right yeah and and you still have to ask
somebody for help
that’s right yeah it it
it’s easier to do it on your phone and
look it up now there’s an app
i’ve seen some changes i’ve been going
every year since 82. it was like
you know sometimes twice a year but
every year i have to go
regardless and the fact we’re going down
again july 4th
now what are we going from july 4th oh
good yeah we’ve got a tour of the
cemetery again
okay yeah we’re going to broadcast from
there for for uh
memorial uh from fourth of july so uh
anything else you’d like to add
uh are you talking to me or a question
yeah anything else you’d like to add
that we
haven’t covered whether you might any
tidbits of information from the
yellow hat crew no i i
i’m um may sound corny but i’m i’m
humbly honored to represent them
uh they’re they’re great folks uh
you know and i and i i could go on and
mention other names as well but uh
we take it to heart at the vietnam
memorial is a special memorial and then
you know there’s lots of us that are
like you ronnie we’re we’re veterans and
you know and there’s 3.4 million of us
that serve in country vietnam and
uh what i do now i started a veterans
group here two and a half years ago
and where i live it’s a community of
about 1200 homes and
we we went from uh 14 people on a
saturday and now we’ve got 144 and we’re
all five branches and we just did the
birthday celebration and we do
we’ve had a flyover one of the guys has
a
steerman biplane and and we do
ceremonies so we do three key ceremonies
memorial day july 4th we change out the
flag and then
veterans day we do another one and we do
a large large golf tournament and
raise money and give it away to a
authorized charity you know
families of the world yeah yeah so i’m
an active veteran
it’s good i’d like to uh let you know
that a good friend of ours william roach
ah yeah he’s uh he has a great website
uh facebook page called the nam nam and
uh
yeah we’ve known each other for years
now he was on the first he’s a hundred
first guy
i can’t say i was a hundred at first
you’re always you’re always 100
yeah is that a picture of you when you
were young ronnie
yeah that was me and saigon across from
the uso club
okay how about that got those three
stripes over there
i i love it after my second wound i got
reassigned to uh
division headquarters rear and benoit uh
he was on
cq uh and i had 14 hours on
and 58 hours off
check that out right and i had my own
jeep so but sometimes we get called up
to go downtown
let’s go with consonut and pick up you
know a colonel or a general or a
politician and
bring him to the embassy or somewhere
here or there when or
to the uso club so right across the
street i’ll get a i’ll post that picture
next week
this is the uso club i never got in
there because i had to watch the jeep
but there you go thank you for thank you
for acknowledging that picture
i volunteer with the uso here as well
again
that’s a good organization really good
thank you so much i tell you what
we appreciate everything you did and
everything you’re doing and
god bless you thank you welcome aboard
in
welcome home
okay out there i got a lot of patches
here i got
marine patches from the hershey woody
williams
medal of honor thing i got 187 airborne
patches
i got 5-0 deuce
recon infantry patches i got orange
heart
uh memorial uh the cancer
thing a new thing but can gamble set up
i have smaller ones for mike like that
so
you want you need a patch you want a
patch of one of those groups just
uh write us at you know go on to uh
vietnam veterans photo club send a
message to one of
either my son matt or myself ronnie and
i will send you one in the mail no
charge
okay thank you very much for watching
god bless you and welcome home
