Truly brilliant photo essay.

Meet Ian Fisher

Quite moving & interesting. It made me think of my bro who went to 'Nam @ the tender age of 19. What he must have gone thru! He, too, went brokenhearted.

...He never made it back tho.

Thanks for sharing MetsfanChi.

That is fantastic. Thank you so much for posting.

I'm sorry SCT, that must've been really hard to take.

Thanks MfC. My dad took it the hardest. It literally changed him forever. Cuz he joined & was not drafted. In fact, he joined cuz he had proposed to his love of is life & she said, "No!" Out of being distraught he joined. Even sadder was the fact that it was 4 months after he joined. He had just finished his boot camp training & was shipped out immediately after that. He had begged my dad to allow him to go AWOL b4 they shipped him out cuz he got 1st hand accounts how things were going. But my dad was 1) afraid of the law. 2) he wanted to teach my bro a life lesson by making him understand that one fulfills one's commitment to such a serious decision. We saw him 'bout a month b4 he went to 'Nam. It was 1968. I was only 4 (2 months b4 turning 5) & even have a pretty clear memory of it. I can imagine what it did to my dad & mom as adults.

The dreaded knock @ the door & then there's 2 upper level military personnel delivering the news right then & there, & handing an official letter to the family, lives up to its notoriously haunting & devastating reputation/experience, trust me.

SCT, I am very sorry about your brother. I am named in honor of my father's best friend and college roommate, who was killed in Viet Nam. Apparently, my father had a very hard time with his death, as I wasn't even told this until I was in my 30's. No matter how long ago it may have happened, there is something different about losing someone to an act of war. It is worse, somehow, in my opinion, because it was preventable. War is never the answer. Thanks for the posting, Metsfan.

That was quite touching.

My brother is contemplating a second tour in Afgahnistan right now. He was actually technically in the reserves, but due to the fact that a lot of people from his unit were going he decided to go to. He lost his girlfriend in the process.

He hasn't spoken to much about the experience, but I really am mystified as to why he would go again by choice.