Three old Vietnam Vets sitting around reminiscing about our time together first at NATTC in Millington, Tennessee and then time in Lemoore, California with VA 23 and our WestPac deployment on the USS Oriskany. Wondering how life might have been different had our squadron not decommissioned and we stayed together for our last 2+ years in the Navy. Joe and Smitty did and were transferred to Whidbey Island, Washington while I was assigned to a new squadron at Lemoore. They made one more cruise to Vietnam on the Midway and I made two more on the America and the Constellation. I know we had a lot of good memories from the time that we did spend together. We even shared a house together briefly before we decommissioned.
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1968 and 2016
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The 7th and 8th were both rainy at the Trials and while it was wet fortunately it wasn't very cold and it was still a great meet to watch. I know the athletes had to hate standing around in the rain waiting for their introductions to be completed.
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| Women's 5000 Meters |
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| Women's 200 Meters |
On the 8th I went to Becky Wade's book signing at the Oregon Duck Bookstore and visited with Coach Vigil while we waited for the signing to start. Then back to another rainy meet. In my book Becky wrote, "Go find an adventure"! I thought that was a great sentiment. The next morning Joe and Judy were going to go to the Saturday Market and Smitty and Denise were working the early session of the trials so I decided to go to breakfast at Addi's Diner. I had seen pictures and comments on Twitter before I even left home. It was as good as advertised and I had something happened that has never happened before. When I got to the register to pay someone had anonymously already paid my check. I was stunned as well as appreciative.
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| Men's 200 Final including 2 High Schoolers |
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| Women's 400 Hurdle Finals |
I took everyone to breakfast on the final day of the Trials before going to the meet. The meet was everything that I had expected and more. I'm already tentatively thinking about going to Outdoor Nationals next summer because they are supposed to be in Sacramento.
Did I mention that we did our fair share of enjoying good food and drink? The fellowship and friendship was even better. Who knows when and where the three of us will meet up again? For now we just stay in touch through text and phone. There are some people from the past who come into your life that you are okay seeing and spending some time together and then moving on. Then there are people like Joe and Smitty who I will make an attempt to get together with from time to time because we have such a good time together.
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