[Dueller]

While there were many surprises we found such as the number of medals (we've found 20 or so) and honors and letters of appreciation and even a presidential citations from Eisenhower and Kennedy, one thing kinda blew us away. We thought he received orders to go to Vietnam the second time in late 1968. Nope. Though eligible to retire he extended and volunteered. This was apparently a secret even my mom didn't know. And he requested an assignment to the front lines. Son of a *****! And he received another bronze star for that stint...meritorious service with two oak leaf clusters. At least he didn't get wounded....AGAIN (in my best Forrest Gump accent).

I remember telling him I was worried about him getting hurt or killed.......I was about 13 or so. Ham. He sat me down and said "Son....more people get killed each year on the highways than in Vietnam. I'll be safer than you will riding in the car with Mom." And that was that. Cracked the church up when the preacher told that story at his funeral.

We found a letter written from vietnam on the back of his orders awarding him the combat infantrymans medal and part of it read "Hello Honey and sweet boys....Thank you for the banana bread and gum. I really enjoyed it but please don't send any more. The air mail postage is too much money and if you send it regular mail it will be moldy and stale by the time it gets here. Save the money for you and the boys.......We sure are losing a lot of boys every day here. I have been able to protect them from being shot by the enemy but the enemy keeps coming up with horrible booby traps. But I'll continue to try and keep them safe....All my love, Carl"

And he came home safe in November 1969 and retired He was 36 years old....nine days shy of his 37th birthday. He had served his country for over 21 years. He had used a cousin's birth certificate and lied about his age to Join at age 15. Now I really understand why he was so intolerant when I was an unruly teenager.