We are all as coastal dwellers who believe a hurricane never will visit their shore. Ed Fagot is president of the Vietnam Veterans of America, Chapter 826, with headquarters in his Springfield home. He carries in his wallet a card picked up at a gathering of Vietnam vets. For those who fight for it, life has a flavor the protected will never know. The detachment's entire fleet was destroyed by the enemy.
Fagot knows the flavor.
And he would like to be able to impart to today's students some sense of what that flavor is like. To that end, he is working to win district approval of lesson plans that he would like to present in Bay County schools next year. Someone should teach the history of Vietnam. My son graduated as a member of the Class of 1999 at Rutherford High School, nigh upon Tyndall Air Force Base, and never was exposed to a single teaching about Vietnam. A couple of weeks ago at Thunder Road on the beach, we had a booth out there and a biker, probably in his 50s, approached the daughter of one of our members.