07-03-2011, 11:26 AM
|
 |
Moderator
|
|
Join Date: Jul 2009
Gender: 
Posts: 13,294
Thanks: 6,690
Thanked 6,256 Times in 4,076 Posts
|
|
Last Vietnam-era draftee is retiring from Army
Excite News - Last Vietnam-era draftee is retiring from Army
Jul 3, 9:21 AM
Quote:
When the draft notice arrived in the mail in 1972 at his home in Eugene, Ore., tens of thousands of troops had been killed. Anti-war protests were rampant. Draft notices were being set on fire and returning soldiers were treated as part of the problem. The military wasn't a popular job.
[ . . .]
Mellinger wasn't long for clerking. He earned a spot in the Army Rangers, and would go on to do more than 3,700 parachute jumps. And despite the 1991 parachute accident that gave him the material for the wind chime, breaking his leg in several places, he went on to run nine marathons. He was made a command sergeant major in 1992.
Nearly a decade later, he was sent to ground zero in New York right after the Sept. 11, 2001, terrorist attacks as part of an advance party from the First Army. Then came his time in Iraq as the top enlisted soldier of the multi-national forces in Iraq, where he says he survived 27 roadside bombings during his deployment of nearly three years straight.
|
Where have all the heroes gone? Into retirement it seems.
__________________
“Quod scripsi, scripsi"
"Sometimes, the source of the beautiful dawning light that drives back the darkness, is your house burning"
|
Linear Mode
