THE WALL OF FACES

I never met Jack because I was born on his birthday in 69 after he died in 68. He was my uncle and I can only know him through family stories. I never understood until recently what a vet. would be doing in Vietnam. I asked my boss, who was also in Vietanm, and he said they did not need a vet.'s for any reason. He did not necessarily need to apply his vet. expertise, but he was smart. My family always told me that he went over there to pay the government back for a school debt by serving his country. That he did. I miss him. I wish I could have met him he sounds like a great man.

Jack was a friend of my dad's through high school that eventually married my aunt. I remember shaking his hand when he left for Vietnam, but I was so young that I didn't comprehend the importance of the event. The older that I get, the more I appreciate what he did for us. Thanks Uncle Jack.

Jack was a graduate of Texas A&M University, Class of '66. He was a veterinarian who went into the army soon after he completed veterinary school. He was a sophomore when I was a freshman in the Corps of Cadets. We were both in Company G-3 (Guzzlin' G). When my "fish ol lady" (roommate) and I were coming out of the post office after checking our mail on the afternoon of November 22, 1963, Jack (and his roommate) saw us and told us that President Kennedy had been shot.--a memory seared in my mind. Jack was the first (maybe only) veterinarian to be killed in VietNam. My father, a Colonel and veterinarian at the time, represented the U.S. Army Veterinary Corps at his funeral.