These are the men of 60th Company, OC 504-68, who were killed in Vietnam. We graduates of that 1968 class of Infantry Officers Candidate School at Fort Benning, Georgia, commemorate them each Memorial Day weekend.
One graduate: 1LT Jacob Lee Kinser.
Two Tactical Officers: CPT Reese Michael Patrick and 1LT Daniel Lynn Neiswender.
Four drop-outs: CPL Sherry Joe Hadley, SP4 Reese Currenti Elia Jr., CPL Robert Chase, and SP4 Jeffrey Sanders Tigner.
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Posted in Infantry OCS, Troops, Viet Nam
Tagged 1LT Daniel Lynn Neiswender, 1LT Jacob Lee Kinser, CPL Rovert Chase, CPL Sherry Joe Hadley, CPT Reese Michael Patrick, Infantry Officer's Candidate School, Jr., Memorial Day 2010, OC 504-68, SP4 Jeffrey Sanders Tigner, SP4 Reese Currenti Elia
Not that we don’t remember and appreciate the dead of both older and more recent American wars and campaigns. We just tend to think of our own first.
Soldier, rest, thy warfare o’er,
Dream of fighting fields no more.
Sleep the sleep that knows not breaking,
Morn of toil, nor night of waking.
–Sir Walter Scott
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Posted in Viet Nam
Tagged 1LT Daniel Lynn Neiswender, 1LT Jacob Lee Kinser, CPL Robert Chase, CPL Sherry Joe Hadley, CPT Reese Michael Patrick, Infantry Officer's Candidate School, Jr., Memorial Day 2009, OC 504-68, SP4 Jeffrey Sanders Tigner, SP4 Reese Currenti Elia, Viet Nam, Vietnam war
The Veterans Administration recently notified me that I have a medical exam in December for the Agent Orange Registry, at their clinic up the road in Temple. Anyone who served in Vietnam during the American war is eligible for the exam. I applied for VA health care a few months ago, though I have private insurance, because I wanted to cover all the bases, plus get the AO exam, just in case. In case of what? Well, prostate cancer for one. It is one of the most common cancers in men, generally, but is considered service-connected in Vietnam veterans because we have a higher-incidence of it than the general male population. The connection is attributed to exposure to the dioxin in the defoliant Agent Orange. A few days after my VA notice, a classmate from OC 504-68 announced on the email list that he’d been diagnosed with it. Then the surprise "I have it, too" emails started coming in. So I’m getting a private physical, a.s.a.p., just in case. Nothing like hearing about the plight of men your age, in your own peer group, to focus on your own health.
UPDATE: I passed. The private doc said my physical inspection and PSA blood test showed prostate cancer was "not an issue," for this year, anyhow.
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Posted in Infantry OCS, Science/Engineering, Viet Nam
Tagged agent orange, dioxin, Infantry Officer's Candidate School, prostate cancer, service-connected disabilities, veteran's administration
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Posted in Infantry OCS, Troops, Viet Nam
Tagged Daniel Lynn Neiswender, Fort Benning, Georgia, Infantry Officer's Candidate School, Jacob Lee Kinser, Jeffrey Sanders Tigner, Jr., OC 504-68, Reese Currenti Elia, Reese Michael Patrick, Robert Chase, Utah or Arizona as Hollywood's Texas
THE TEXAS SCRIBBLER 