Of all the places we went, there was one I had to visit above all others, that being The Vietnam Memorial Wall. I graduated with 755 classmates and we lost, to my knowledge, five in the war. In junior high, I played football against Dean Vasquez. He was a big, soft spoken Hispanic kid. He didn't say much and after playing against him I decided football wasn't in my future. He went on to letter at our high school. In fact, I think he lettered as a sophmore.
He lived a block away from me but I never really knew him. In those days, you had so many kids on your own block, you never had to go outside of it to make friends or get guys to do things with.
He joined the marines after high school and was killed in 1968.
For anyone who still reads this blog, if you go to D.C., visit the wall. Take your kids with you if you can. Look at the names. There are 58,195 of them.
May we never forget.....
