Frank (Skip) Sousa:  

To those people I walked among so long ago: I recall graduating from DHS on Sunday June 13, 1965 and on Monday I was at Fort Dix, NJ for basic training. I then trained in army aviation as a flight crew chief at Fort Rucker, AL and was deployed to Vietnam February 1966 through February 1967. My next duty station was in the Panama Canal Zone where I served out my three year enlistment getting out in June 1968. I made sergeant in less than two years (20) and was fortunate to have survived (unscathed) Vietnam. I also had the good fortune to see and experience Thailand, Japan, Venezuela, Columbia, Ecuador and all of Latin America. I drove home from Panama to Dracut in a 1958 Pontiac - a lovely 7,500 mile trek. 1968, I know, was a bad year with the assassinations and violent peace demonstrations. I was told by my father and my closest friend not to talk about my experiences in Vietnam. I lost my HS sweetheart to a man who did not serve. I was confused and angry, as I suppose all of us were. Two years of aimless jobs and false educational starts followed. I married my childhood sweetheart in 1970 and had a thirty-five year marriage - we divorced in 2005 but we remain friends. I have one child, a daughter, who is now thirty-one with a daughter of her own who, with her husban...Expand for more