“The evening began with me reading a letter my father wrote to my mother when he was deployed to the Pacific during the Korean War. It was about my birth. I had not read before at the event but I wanted to honor my father and his military wife by reading one of his many letters. Then stories of the Vietnam War were told: of photos not taken because of respect for the dead, how a corpsman was embedded with the Marines doing humanitarian work in Vietnamese villages, and the gritty reality check of a soldier humping through treacherous Ashau Valley, and of another Seaman loading bombs into an airplane somewhere in Thailand. As I listened to the Vietnam veterans read, I sensed I was witnessing something extraordinary. I was in the presence of combat soldiers, who lived in and through war. And their stories touched something primordial within, awakening a sense of pride and honor.”