Army buddies discovered each other in their neighborhood
USAToday tells the story of Dave Brown and Roger Watson who served together during Vietnam, lost touch, and then found each other;
The two men — who came from the same northwest Detroit neighborhood, were drafted on the same day in 1966, trained together at Ft. Hood in Texas, served in the 9th Infantry and were combat engineer demolition specialists — never saw or heard from each other again.
Until right before Halloween this year.
That’s when the two men — more than 40 years older than the last time they saw each other as young soldiers in training — walked across their kitty-corner backyards in Berkley and met at the chain-link fence.
For 18 years, the two Oakland County men had lived nearly back to back and didn’t even know it.
I can see that happening. Its the nature of being veterans, I guess.
Thanks to Chief Tango for the link.
Category: War Stories
Very cool!
Nice story. These ‘coincidences’ make me wonder, though.
I catch myself thinking negative when I see a vet with bling. Have to remind myself that there are a bunch of us out out there that treasure our service but have moved on.
When I first went in the Army in the mid 70’s, at the community centers in Germany, they had a book you could register in. You could list: your name, unit, home town, arrival date and DEROS. I checked those on several bases and found people that were from the area where I was raised. Us NC rednecks needed to stick together.
Sometimes, it really can be a small world.
One week prior to my leaving for Vietnam, I was at a party in my hometown. Ran into a gal I knew. Her husband was serving in Vietnam. She asked me, if I saw him to gim him her love. Like that’s going to happen. Two weeks later I’m in Vietnam. The sun is setting, and it see two dirty 11B’s walking down the road towards me. One of them was the husband of the gal I talked to at the party!
Go figure
I learned through the Army just how small the world really is. What are the chances that you would know people who know YOUR peeps? Greater than you think. Uncle J knows a friend I grew up with…called him “pretty boy”because he loved his own looks. I knew instantly who it was and I didn’t serve with Uncle J…but only 1 PB!! Another time I was in Austria and ran into a flight attendant from the UAE who knew my best friend in NC…
cue…”it’s a small world after all, it’s a small world after all…” 🙂
Way back when I was sponsoring a family coming in that were to take the other half of the duplex I lived in in Pusan Korea. One day I come home and movers are unloading. My guy is still in CONUS. I get pissed and knock on the door in a WTF frame of mind. It was an old bud from Advanced Course. That began the destruction of my liver over the next 30 years. I helped bury him at Arlington last year.
The only coinkadinky story I have is of meeting a guy in service who was born in a different state than I was but our towns were the same name. Oh, and he was born in the same month and year I was–and the same day! Neither of us believed the other so we had to exchange proof. We were pals thereafter.
I’ve twice run across people from my hometown. First in ’94 when I reported aboard my ship a guy recognized me (we had been in the HS band together); I didn’t recognize him because he was a scrawny guy in HS, but had had one helluva growth spurt (to the point that our BMC, dealing with chronic under manning, said “F it” and gave him Line 4…by himself).
Then, about two years ago I was giving a class to Captain’s Career Course and afterwards one of the students approached me; he had recognized my accent (people from my hometown have a unique accent/dialect) and was also from my hometown.