With Black Lions friends Steve Goodman and Tom Hinger, standing in front of panel 28E, where the names of Black Lions killed in the Battle of Ong Thanh are etched. We were attending the First Infantry Division Reunion in Washington, DC during Summer, '97. It was the first time I had seen these two and many other friends since I had left Vietnam in March, '68. It was a very special gathering.

Our number has thinned considerably since that time. We nearly lost Tom to pancreatic cancer several years ago. Surviving that was a lot like dodging a bullet, which he also did on many occasions. We lost Goody in January 2017 after a lengthy battle with lymphoma. Many others have passed away in the last two decades.

Although I'm not one to blame every medical problem on Agent Orange exposure, many cancers and other serious health problems are related to that. Many of our friends have died or are suffering from those illnesses. At the very least, most of us have Type 2 diabetes and the many health problems that it brings. We served in the most highly sprayed section of Vietnam during the peak of defoliation efforts. Many times we patrolled through jungles that were rotting around us. The residue stuck to our sweaty skin and uniforms and couldn't be completely washed off for days to weeks. Although we were skeptical, I'm sure that our junior officers, who were on those patrols with us, honestly believed the cover story that the poison that was killing the jungle around us wouldn't harm us. None of us wasted time worrying about anything that might affect us years or decades later. At that point in our lives, "the future" didn't extend beyond our next patrol.