MEDEVAC
15th Med\15th FSB
Mike Bodnar
307B N Main
Copperas Cove, TX 76522 1704
254-542-1961
e-mail: mbodnar27@juno.com
SO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE; That is the motto of this unit;
call sign: MEDEVAC. I think that is a great motto. The
command unit, 15th Medical Battalion, now 15th Forward
Support Battalion, uses the official motto of: STANDING BY;
and adds unofficially: LEAD THE WAY.
Other great mottos: THIS WE'LL DEFEND; WE CAN, WE WILL;
GARRY!OWEN; HONOR AND COURAGE; SEMPER PARATUS; LOYALTY,
COURAGE; and many, many more. Whatever your motto to live by
and fight with...FIRST TEAM!
SO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE has special meaning to those of
us who were privileged enough to serve on MEDEVAC and to be
able to repay the sacrifices of service by our combative
fellow Americans as soldiers by being there when they needed
us. I know from having been on the sacrificing, needing end,
in C 2\7 Cav in 1969, while we pursued the enemy, that
MEDEVAC was more than special.
From the impressions of my fellow platoon members and
11-Bravos whom I served with in C 2\7 Cav, I found my way to
serve on MEDEVAC when my DEROS arrived in December of 1969.
Things had quieted down in our A.O. because we had done the
job that was requested of the 1st Cavalry Division. At least
it had quieted down where I was in C 2\7, compared to very
busy and bloody months in the early and middle months of
1969, and when the 1st Cavalry Division first came down to
III Corps at the end of 1968.
I felt that I could do more by flying on MEDEVAC, which
covered the entire 1st Cavalry Division, so I had extended my
Vietnam service six months to do that. The combat activity
would always be somewhere, covering the entire division, even
if all of the units had cleaned out their A.O.'s. Some enemy
element would always be trying to find a new way to
infiltrate somewhere, and somebody in the 1st Cavalry
Division would find them.
There has been recent, aggressive activity by veterans
of MEDEVAC in the name of SNORE-a.k.a. Sherman BREEDEN-a
MEDEVAC crew chief extraordinaire whom I served with, and
thanks to the Internet, to locate fellow MEDEVAC veterans. I
ran into SNORE when he signed the 1st Cavalry Division
Association's Web site Guestbook a number of times.
I found SNORE's Web site and what he has been doing to
organize and locate the veterans of MEDEVAC. SNORE and the
other veterans of MEDEVAC whom he and they have found-over
150 MEDEVAC veterans in all, and counting-just had their
first reunion on 17-19 April 1998, in Virginia Beach, VA.
As all of the 1st Cavalry Division units seem to do, the
MEDEVAC veterans have formed an association. Like the first
President of the United States, George WASHINGTON, Sherman
BREEDEN, also a Virginian, was elected to be the first
president of the MEDEVAC Association.
I am sure that the MEDEVAC veterans wanted to honor
SNORE, like George WASHINGTON was honored, by electing him
the first president, for the organization and leadership to
unite everyone. The charter members of the MEDEVAC
Association and those attending the first MEDEVAC Reunion
are: Dan BRADY, Barry L. BROWN, Larry ASH, Quinn H. BECKER,
Sherman L. BREEDEN, Dillard CARTER, Robert "Tom" CAMPBELL,
David COOPER, Wendell DAVIS, Jim FERGUSON, Mark HOLIDAY, Jim
HUDSON, Ron HUETHER, Eldon H. IDEUS, Chuck LAWHORN, Jimmy A.
NORRIS, Michael SMITH, Rich Jay TANNER, John G. TABOR, Tom J.
WHELAN, Corky WALSH, Bob MCKINLEY, Tom TRIFIRO, Ray ZEPP,
Thomas R. HUGHES, and John F. ZWALINSKI.
If I got anyone's name incorrect let me know and a
correction will be noted. I hate to be inaccurate, especially
with another veteran's name.
These above names are of course nowhere near the over
150 MEDEVAC veterans recently found. It is, though, the start
of the MEDEVAC reunions. The 1999 MEDEVAC Reunion will be May
1st and 2nd, at the Jackie Coughan Plaza in Las Vegas, NV.
The room rates will be $50 + Tax as of this writing.
I recently spoke to our 1st Cavalry Division Association
Executive Director Art Junot (BG Ret.), and he mentioned to
me that he has to remind the various units that submit
columns, that the Saber is not for their newsletters.
I am not intending for this column, if it can grace the
pages of the Saber, to be a MEDEVAC or 15th Med\FSB
newsletter. I just wanted to introduce the Saber readers to
the belated organization of MEDEVAC veterans happening
recently, so that the many veterans of MEDEVAC as well the
15th Med and 15th FSB who read the Saber know where to
regroup with those whom they served with in those units.
I suggest going to SNORE's Web site, if you use the
Internet, to read his newsletter and all of the other
extensive information that he has posted. I recommend going
first to his Web site map-like all astute soldiers do to
locate themselves. The Web site map is at:
http://www.vabch.com/mssb/SNORE/MAP15th.HTM
It was my idea that I expressed to SNORE to be active
with the 1st Cav Association which I have been a member of
since I found out about it and I have been going to the 1st
Cav Association reunions since 1985. He suggested that I
start the writing of this column instead of him or someone
else-as long as I thought that he should do one in the Saber
for the MEDEVAC veterans of the 1st Cav. I was surprised that
SNORE and so many other MEDEVAC veterans have not recently
been members of their 1st Cavalry Division Association.
I think the reason that I, myself, did not know about
the 1st Cavalry Division Association when I was in the 1st
Cav in Vietnam was because I do not think that anyone
responsible thought that we would live very long, so they did
not bother telling us. I seriously believe that; but that is
history; let us make up for lost time.
The fact that life membership is only $10 should make it
as easy as anything on this earth to do to join when you are
a veteran of the 1st Cavalry Division. Being a veteran of the
1st Cavalry Division can only mean more than anything else on
this earth if you are an American and a veteran of the United
States Army.
I impressed on SNORE the many important reasons to join
his 1st Cav Association and he finally just did. SNORE put
out the word in his e-mailings to all of us MEDEVAC and 15th
Med\FSB veterans, the important reasons for everyone to join
their 1st Cavalry Division Association. Welcome home Sherman;
and I do not say that lightly. We are waiting for our other
MEDEVAC and 15th Med\FSB veterans who have not yet joined, to
come home.
At this point I want to say that I dislike-and I have
always disliked-the phrase bestowed upon Vietnam veterans,
"Welcome home!" Personally, I never left!
In 1986, while I was living in Los Angeles, there was a
rock concert put on at the famous Los Angeles Forum, for
Vietnam veterans. I was then a member of the Southern
California Chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association.
Herb EDWARDS, A 2\8 Cav, and his then wife Kathy, got tickets
for all of us to that Vietnam veteran dedicated concert at
the Los Angeles Forum.
I wanted to go because there were a lot of rock
musicians whom I always wanted to see. One of the performers
was a controversial 60's activist and musician whose music I
knew well; that musician being Country Joe McDonald.
Country Joe did his first, acoustic song at the concert
and I happened to be not in my seat but down in front of the
stage. Country Joe, after finishing his first song, said into
the microphone to the Vietnam veteran audience, "Welcome
home!"
That irked me as that phrase always does, directed to
Vietnam veterans, and I just sounded off back at Joe so that
he could hear me, "SAME TO YOU!" I knew that Country Joe was
a pre-Vietnam War veteran of the United States Navy.
Country Joe apparently did hear me and he was affected
as I had intended because he then started to mumble into the
microphone to the Vietnam veteran audience about himself
having been in the Navy in the early 60's, blah, blah; with
great humility, as a fellow veteran. My mission was
accomplished.
But to SNORE and all of the veterans joining their 1st
Cavalry Division Association, you are coming home. You have
been away from your 1st Cavalry Division that you helped to
set into history with your dedicated service.
You have always carried the 1st Cav with you as
veterans; just as American veterans we serve our country and
bring the country with us, fighting under our flag. How can
we be welcomed home when we never leave in essence? But we do
leave the division, and by joining our 1st Cavalry Division
Association we are, coming home.
I am looking forward to seeing the MEDEVAC and 15th
Med\FSB veterans' reunions being held at the big 1st Cavalry
Division Association reunions, like the other 1st Cav unit
associations have theirs. Then I will know that we are all
home!
I am suspicious that someone started that "Welcome
home!" phrase uttered to Vietnam veterans to belittle us. And
then of course it was adapted by the culture, and used in a
sincere context by the innocent and well intentioned.
I think that "Welcome home!" phrase had its origins from
the same people who like to say that we lost the Vietnam War.
I recently read former President Richard Nixon's book: No
More Vietnams. He says that we in fact won the "second"
Vietnam War, and he presents Presidential evidence along with
a detailed history of Vietnam as only he could at the level
of government service that he achieved in his long career.
I have the instinct to believe him and his strong
evidence over those who do nothing but criticize. I know
firsthand the hard work that the American military produced
to carry out his, as American, policies.
I think of the 1st Cavalry Division then and now doing
as ordered to defend peace and democracy. Notwithstanding, I
find in reading the autobiography of Hamilton H. Howze, whom
some of you may know of, that he takes experienced issue with
the concept that those that fight and sometimes die in
military service do so "in the defense of freedom."
He says that maybe that is why they enlisted but he
thinks that after little training, soldiers do not fight and
sometimes die primarily for country, or freedom, or other
lofty purpose-but they fight for their buddies, their squad,
then their platoon, their company, and maybe their battalion,
and upward in descending order of importance. That was in
extreme combat that he experienced.
So too it was with us flying on MEDEVAC. We had the
immediate concern; and that was to extract the wounded and
dying from combat. I think back and I feel like Pluto's dog,
guarding the gate to the dead, not allowing anyone to enter.
In the September\October edition of the Saber the 1\9
Cav column had a graphic account of combat in Tay Ninh
Province in 1970. (I was beginning to think that everyone in
1\9 Cav had retired from the Association)
I am presently reading Kregg JORGENSON's excellent book
Acceptable Loss, which is as engrossing and well written as
his Saber column story was about "men of steel." I would not
let anyone sit on my buddy either-none of them-not even the
ones that I do not know!
Thanks to Kregg P.J. JORGENSON and Matt BRENNAN for
their books, and David BRAY for his articles telling us about
their and the other 1\9 Cav scouts so that we know what they
did, can be done. Thanks to all of them who have written
about their experiences which were above and beyond the call
of duty. Although, I know of one veteran of the United States
Army who would reduce that to just, duty: Roy P. Benavidez;
R.I.P.
The reason that I mention all of this in this column is
because Kregg JORGENSON mentioned in his Saber story that
MEDEVAC came out when they needed to extract their wounded.
I was flying on MEDEVAC then and in Tay Ninh at times-the 1st
Cav's 1st Brigade A.O. I do not remember ever picking up for
1\9 Cav but it is good to know that we did and that we could
help them like we did the other units that did not have their
own helicopters like 1\9 Cav did.
Because I do not remember making any pickups for 1\9 Cav
does not mean that I never did, nor that MEDEVAC did only
rarely. As one of my squad leaders in C 2\7 Cav, Roy STERN,
would tell me at the reunions, "Vietnam is just a blur." That
could be the case more than I would like to admit.
Of course in MEDEVAC there was also a lot of competition
among crew members to fly. It was supply and demand. A close
to full roster in the air ambulance platoon was maintained,
and only three active crews were assigned to cover each of
the three 1st Cav brigades. Until the s hit the fan, everyone
not immediately assigned, was on call.
When the Cambodian Incursion happened from May 1st
through June until July of 1970, everyone in MEDEVAC was
assigned as a crew and we were all flying, extracting wounded
for every U.S. Army and A.R.V.N. unit in the III Corps sector
of Cambodia. We were very busy, with over a thousand sorties
which is documented in the U.S. Government Printing Office
book: Army Aero-medical Evacuation in Vietnam.
With that kind of activity, I know that there has to be
at least some stories-I have found a few already that I will
work on getting into print-from that period anyway, for the
Saber, that all of you MEDEVAC crewmen-to include our great
pilots-can test your writing ability with. Send them to me,
or even better, to SNORE to also put on his Web site. I can
get them from him. If you are not online that is what the
Saber is for; for the last fifty years.
To all MEDEVAC veterans, 15th Med, and the present 15th
FSB, I encourage you-if you got through the Army I do not
need to give you courage, write a short story about your
service, your unit, your 1st Cavalry Division, that shows the
importance to serve your country and your fellow Americans,
when so many Americans never put on the uniform of their
nation's military. Let us know that you are proud to do that
mature, responsible job, that is inspirational.
I will hold you in suspense until the next issue of the
Saber about the list of names of the over one hundred and
fifty MEDEVAC veterans that have been found; everyone else,
let us know that you are alive, write! Always remembering our
1st Cav troops on duty around the world; over and out.
FIRST TEAM!
Garryowen,
Mike Bodnar C 2\7 '69
MEDEVAC 1-7\70
SO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE
15th Med\15th FSB
Mike Bodnar
307B N Main
Copperas Cove, TX 76522 1704
254-542-1961
e-mail: mbodnar27@juno.com
SO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE; That is the motto of this unit;
call sign: MEDEVAC. I think that is a great motto. The
command unit, 15th Medical Battalion, now 15th Forward
Support Battalion, uses the official motto of: STANDING BY;
and adds unofficially: LEAD THE WAY.
Other great mottos: THIS WE'LL DEFEND; WE CAN, WE WILL;
GARRY!OWEN; HONOR AND COURAGE; SEMPER PARATUS; LOYALTY,
COURAGE; and many, many more. Whatever your motto to live by
and fight with...FIRST TEAM!
SO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE has special meaning to those of
us who were privileged enough to serve on MEDEVAC and to be
able to repay the sacrifices of service by our combative
fellow Americans as soldiers by being there when they needed
us. I know from having been on the sacrificing, needing end,
in C 2\7 Cav in 1969, while we pursued the enemy, that
MEDEVAC was more than special.
From the impressions of my fellow platoon members and
11-Bravos whom I served with in C 2\7 Cav, I found my way to
serve on MEDEVAC when my DEROS arrived in December of 1969.
Things had quieted down in our A.O. because we had done the
job that was requested of the 1st Cavalry Division. At least
it had quieted down where I was in C 2\7, compared to very
busy and bloody months in the early and middle months of
1969, and when the 1st Cavalry Division first came down to
III Corps at the end of 1968.
I felt that I could do more by flying on MEDEVAC, which
covered the entire 1st Cavalry Division, so I had extended my
Vietnam service six months to do that. The combat activity
would always be somewhere, covering the entire division, even
if all of the units had cleaned out their A.O.'s. Some enemy
element would always be trying to find a new way to
infiltrate somewhere, and somebody in the 1st Cavalry
Division would find them.
There has been recent, aggressive activity by veterans
of MEDEVAC in the name of SNORE-a.k.a. Sherman BREEDEN-a
MEDEVAC crew chief extraordinaire whom I served with, and
thanks to the Internet, to locate fellow MEDEVAC veterans. I
ran into SNORE when he signed the 1st Cavalry Division
Association's Web site Guestbook a number of times.
I found SNORE's Web site and what he has been doing to
organize and locate the veterans of MEDEVAC. SNORE and the
other veterans of MEDEVAC whom he and they have found-over
150 MEDEVAC veterans in all, and counting-just had their
first reunion on 17-19 April 1998, in Virginia Beach, VA.
As all of the 1st Cavalry Division units seem to do, the
MEDEVAC veterans have formed an association. Like the first
President of the United States, George WASHINGTON, Sherman
BREEDEN, also a Virginian, was elected to be the first
president of the MEDEVAC Association.
I am sure that the MEDEVAC veterans wanted to honor
SNORE, like George WASHINGTON was honored, by electing him
the first president, for the organization and leadership to
unite everyone. The charter members of the MEDEVAC
Association and those attending the first MEDEVAC Reunion
are: Dan BRADY, Barry L. BROWN, Larry ASH, Quinn H. BECKER,
Sherman L. BREEDEN, Dillard CARTER, Robert "Tom" CAMPBELL,
David COOPER, Wendell DAVIS, Jim FERGUSON, Mark HOLIDAY, Jim
HUDSON, Ron HUETHER, Eldon H. IDEUS, Chuck LAWHORN, Jimmy A.
NORRIS, Michael SMITH, Rich Jay TANNER, John G. TABOR, Tom J.
WHELAN, Corky WALSH, Bob MCKINLEY, Tom TRIFIRO, Ray ZEPP,
Thomas R. HUGHES, and John F. ZWALINSKI.
If I got anyone's name incorrect let me know and a
correction will be noted. I hate to be inaccurate, especially
with another veteran's name.
These above names are of course nowhere near the over
150 MEDEVAC veterans recently found. It is, though, the start
of the MEDEVAC reunions. The 1999 MEDEVAC Reunion will be May
1st and 2nd, at the Jackie Coughan Plaza in Las Vegas, NV.
The room rates will be $50 + Tax as of this writing.
I recently spoke to our 1st Cavalry Division Association
Executive Director Art Junot (BG Ret.), and he mentioned to
me that he has to remind the various units that submit
columns, that the Saber is not for their newsletters.
I am not intending for this column, if it can grace the
pages of the Saber, to be a MEDEVAC or 15th Med\FSB
newsletter. I just wanted to introduce the Saber readers to
the belated organization of MEDEVAC veterans happening
recently, so that the many veterans of MEDEVAC as well the
15th Med and 15th FSB who read the Saber know where to
regroup with those whom they served with in those units.
I suggest going to SNORE's Web site, if you use the
Internet, to read his newsletter and all of the other
extensive information that he has posted. I recommend going
first to his Web site map-like all astute soldiers do to
locate themselves. The Web site map is at:
http://www.vabch.com/mssb/SNORE/MAP15th.HTM
It was my idea that I expressed to SNORE to be active
with the 1st Cav Association which I have been a member of
since I found out about it and I have been going to the 1st
Cav Association reunions since 1985. He suggested that I
start the writing of this column instead of him or someone
else-as long as I thought that he should do one in the Saber
for the MEDEVAC veterans of the 1st Cav. I was surprised that
SNORE and so many other MEDEVAC veterans have not recently
been members of their 1st Cavalry Division Association.
I think the reason that I, myself, did not know about
the 1st Cavalry Division Association when I was in the 1st
Cav in Vietnam was because I do not think that anyone
responsible thought that we would live very long, so they did
not bother telling us. I seriously believe that; but that is
history; let us make up for lost time.
The fact that life membership is only $10 should make it
as easy as anything on this earth to do to join when you are
a veteran of the 1st Cavalry Division. Being a veteran of the
1st Cavalry Division can only mean more than anything else on
this earth if you are an American and a veteran of the United
States Army.
I impressed on SNORE the many important reasons to join
his 1st Cav Association and he finally just did. SNORE put
out the word in his e-mailings to all of us MEDEVAC and 15th
Med\FSB veterans, the important reasons for everyone to join
their 1st Cavalry Division Association. Welcome home Sherman;
and I do not say that lightly. We are waiting for our other
MEDEVAC and 15th Med\FSB veterans who have not yet joined, to
come home.
At this point I want to say that I dislike-and I have
always disliked-the phrase bestowed upon Vietnam veterans,
"Welcome home!" Personally, I never left!
In 1986, while I was living in Los Angeles, there was a
rock concert put on at the famous Los Angeles Forum, for
Vietnam veterans. I was then a member of the Southern
California Chapter of the 1st Cavalry Division Association.
Herb EDWARDS, A 2\8 Cav, and his then wife Kathy, got tickets
for all of us to that Vietnam veteran dedicated concert at
the Los Angeles Forum.
I wanted to go because there were a lot of rock
musicians whom I always wanted to see. One of the performers
was a controversial 60's activist and musician whose music I
knew well; that musician being Country Joe McDonald.
Country Joe did his first, acoustic song at the concert
and I happened to be not in my seat but down in front of the
stage. Country Joe, after finishing his first song, said into
the microphone to the Vietnam veteran audience, "Welcome
home!"
That irked me as that phrase always does, directed to
Vietnam veterans, and I just sounded off back at Joe so that
he could hear me, "SAME TO YOU!" I knew that Country Joe was
a pre-Vietnam War veteran of the United States Navy.
Country Joe apparently did hear me and he was affected
as I had intended because he then started to mumble into the
microphone to the Vietnam veteran audience about himself
having been in the Navy in the early 60's, blah, blah; with
great humility, as a fellow veteran. My mission was
accomplished.
But to SNORE and all of the veterans joining their 1st
Cavalry Division Association, you are coming home. You have
been away from your 1st Cavalry Division that you helped to
set into history with your dedicated service.
You have always carried the 1st Cav with you as
veterans; just as American veterans we serve our country and
bring the country with us, fighting under our flag. How can
we be welcomed home when we never leave in essence? But we do
leave the division, and by joining our 1st Cavalry Division
Association we are, coming home.
I am looking forward to seeing the MEDEVAC and 15th
Med\FSB veterans' reunions being held at the big 1st Cavalry
Division Association reunions, like the other 1st Cav unit
associations have theirs. Then I will know that we are all
home!
I am suspicious that someone started that "Welcome
home!" phrase uttered to Vietnam veterans to belittle us. And
then of course it was adapted by the culture, and used in a
sincere context by the innocent and well intentioned.
I think that "Welcome home!" phrase had its origins from
the same people who like to say that we lost the Vietnam War.
I recently read former President Richard Nixon's book: No
More Vietnams. He says that we in fact won the "second"
Vietnam War, and he presents Presidential evidence along with
a detailed history of Vietnam as only he could at the level
of government service that he achieved in his long career.
I have the instinct to believe him and his strong
evidence over those who do nothing but criticize. I know
firsthand the hard work that the American military produced
to carry out his, as American, policies.
I think of the 1st Cavalry Division then and now doing
as ordered to defend peace and democracy. Notwithstanding, I
find in reading the autobiography of Hamilton H. Howze, whom
some of you may know of, that he takes experienced issue with
the concept that those that fight and sometimes die in
military service do so "in the defense of freedom."
He says that maybe that is why they enlisted but he
thinks that after little training, soldiers do not fight and
sometimes die primarily for country, or freedom, or other
lofty purpose-but they fight for their buddies, their squad,
then their platoon, their company, and maybe their battalion,
and upward in descending order of importance. That was in
extreme combat that he experienced.
So too it was with us flying on MEDEVAC. We had the
immediate concern; and that was to extract the wounded and
dying from combat. I think back and I feel like Pluto's dog,
guarding the gate to the dead, not allowing anyone to enter.
In the September\October edition of the Saber the 1\9
Cav column had a graphic account of combat in Tay Ninh
Province in 1970. (I was beginning to think that everyone in
1\9 Cav had retired from the Association)
I am presently reading Kregg JORGENSON's excellent book
Acceptable Loss, which is as engrossing and well written as
his Saber column story was about "men of steel." I would not
let anyone sit on my buddy either-none of them-not even the
ones that I do not know!
Thanks to Kregg P.J. JORGENSON and Matt BRENNAN for
their books, and David BRAY for his articles telling us about
their and the other 1\9 Cav scouts so that we know what they
did, can be done. Thanks to all of them who have written
about their experiences which were above and beyond the call
of duty. Although, I know of one veteran of the United States
Army who would reduce that to just, duty: Roy P. Benavidez;
R.I.P.
The reason that I mention all of this in this column is
because Kregg JORGENSON mentioned in his Saber story that
MEDEVAC came out when they needed to extract their wounded.
I was flying on MEDEVAC then and in Tay Ninh at times-the 1st
Cav's 1st Brigade A.O. I do not remember ever picking up for
1\9 Cav but it is good to know that we did and that we could
help them like we did the other units that did not have their
own helicopters like 1\9 Cav did.
Because I do not remember making any pickups for 1\9 Cav
does not mean that I never did, nor that MEDEVAC did only
rarely. As one of my squad leaders in C 2\7 Cav, Roy STERN,
would tell me at the reunions, "Vietnam is just a blur." That
could be the case more than I would like to admit.
Of course in MEDEVAC there was also a lot of competition
among crew members to fly. It was supply and demand. A close
to full roster in the air ambulance platoon was maintained,
and only three active crews were assigned to cover each of
the three 1st Cav brigades. Until the s hit the fan, everyone
not immediately assigned, was on call.
When the Cambodian Incursion happened from May 1st
through June until July of 1970, everyone in MEDEVAC was
assigned as a crew and we were all flying, extracting wounded
for every U.S. Army and A.R.V.N. unit in the III Corps sector
of Cambodia. We were very busy, with over a thousand sorties
which is documented in the U.S. Government Printing Office
book: Army Aero-medical Evacuation in Vietnam.
With that kind of activity, I know that there has to be
at least some stories-I have found a few already that I will
work on getting into print-from that period anyway, for the
Saber, that all of you MEDEVAC crewmen-to include our great
pilots-can test your writing ability with. Send them to me,
or even better, to SNORE to also put on his Web site. I can
get them from him. If you are not online that is what the
Saber is for; for the last fifty years.
To all MEDEVAC veterans, 15th Med, and the present 15th
FSB, I encourage you-if you got through the Army I do not
need to give you courage, write a short story about your
service, your unit, your 1st Cavalry Division, that shows the
importance to serve your country and your fellow Americans,
when so many Americans never put on the uniform of their
nation's military. Let us know that you are proud to do that
mature, responsible job, that is inspirational.
I will hold you in suspense until the next issue of the
Saber about the list of names of the over one hundred and
fifty MEDEVAC veterans that have been found; everyone else,
let us know that you are alive, write! Always remembering our
1st Cav troops on duty around the world; over and out.
FIRST TEAM!
Garryowen,
Mike Bodnar C 2\7 '69
MEDEVAC 1-7\70
SO THAT OTHERS MAY LIVE
| 1999 Jan-Feb |
