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From Travis Skaggs |
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This was taken the day I left for Vietnam. It was taken at my parent's home in Pittsburg, PA. This picture has it all: home, flag, pregnant wife, and dog. We are still married, all that I have I owe to her. |
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It's easy to go on about how hard Vietnam was, but how would you have liked to have been 20 years old, pregnant, and wonder every day if this was the day the call came. Lou joined a wives support group in Pittsburg. One day a young woman in the group got that hard call. The other wives were older and they just said, "Well, it wasn't like they had been married for a long time." Lou never went back.
When I was in country I never mentioned anything in my letters about what was going on. In all my letters I made it seem that I had some job in the rear that was pretty safe. George Terry and me talked about this one day when we were on a patrol. He said it was better to let them know what was going on. I just felt that if bad news got there, that would be soon enough for her to know the truth. |
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From Travis Skaggs |
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This picture and the one below were taken on R&R in Hawaii where I joined my wife. I got to Hawaii on September 19th. Three days earlier I had been in the bush, scared, hot, dirty, and in a very strange world. A plane flight later and I'm a tourist in Hawaii.
Lou and I were talking the other day about R&R. She told me that she was amazed at the amount of time I would spend in the shower. |
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From Travis Skaggs |
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From Travis Skaggs |
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This is how I found out I was a father. We were on operation Oklahoma Hills, on hill 502, up at the top of Charlie Ridge. We set around there for several days not doing anything that I could see. My son was 10 months old before I ever saw him.
While there we threw our garbage in a bomb crater. When we got ready to leave we burned the garbage. The gooks had hidden several 122mm rockets in the crater and the fire set off the propellant, but thankfully not the charges. First platoon's platoon sergent (Sgt. Muru) was burned by the flash. That would have been about the 5th or 6th of April. |
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