I spent a lot of time in the town library reading geography books and I daydreamed about one day visiting all the places I was discovering in the books. At age 17, I joined the Navy and soon found myself in the Fleet Marine Force as a grunt corpsman, traveling all over the Far East with the First and Third Marine Divisions and visiting some of those far-off places. It was just the beginning of a life filled with meeting extraordinary people and traveling to some extraordinary places. I love to travel. Going to Green Bay, Wisconsin is as much an adventure to me as going to Bangkok.
People are people the world over.
Like many Vietnam veterans, the war interrupted my dreams too. I did my time and got out and put Vietnam behind me. We were taught nothing of the language, culture or history. When I seriously thought about it, there wasn't a whole lot that I knew about this country except that I had once been there involved in their war. We Americans just ignored it while the rest of the free world continued dealing with it before and after 1975.