Seven people I've known...

Seven people I've known ... are on this wall, including one I called “friend” and another “mate”, both from my service in the U.S. Navy.  Actually, it's possible there are more that I'm unaware of.  My friend was a hospital corpsman I met in boot camp, killed in 1972 while treating a U.S. Marine injured in combat (the Marine survived).  My mate was a fellow DS (data systems technician) who served on PT boats, then became a DS, and then volunteered for another “tour” on PT boats.  He was killed in a firefight along a river just 25 miles northeast of Saigon in the last days of American involvement in the war.

I think of them both every year around this time, along with the thousands of others who were casualties in America's many wars...