Most of the surviving Parents are now deceased.

There are 58,267 names now listed on that polished black wall, including those added in 2010.

The names are arranged in the order in which they were taken from us by date and within each date the names are alphabetized. It is hard to believe it is 36 years since the last casualties.

Beginning at the apex on panel 1E and going out to the end of the East wall, appearing to recede into the earth (numbered 70E – May 25, 1968), then resuming at the end of the West wall, as the wall emerges from the earth (numbered 70W – continuing May 25, 1968) and ending with a date in 1975. Thus the war’s beginning and end meet. The war is complete, coming full circle, yet broken by the earth that bounds the angle’s open side and contained within the earth itself.

The first known casualty was Richard B. Fitzgibbon, of North Weymouth, Mass. Listed by the U.S. Department of Defense as having been killed on June 8, 1956. His name is listed on the Wall with that of his son, Marine Corps Lance Cpl. Richard B. Fitzgibbon III, who was killed on Sept. 7, 1965.

There are three sets of fathers and sons on the Wall.

39,996 on the Wall were just 22 or younger.

8,283 were just 19 years old.

The largest age group, 33,103 were 18 years old.

12 soldiers on the Wall were 17 years old.

5 soldiers on the Wall were 16 years old.

One soldier, PFC Dan Bullock was 15 years old.

997 soldiers were killed on their first day in Vietnam .

1,448 soldiers were killed on their last day in Vietnam .

31 sets of brothers are on the Wall.

Thirty one sets of parents lost two of their sons.

54 soldiers on attended Thomas Edison High School in Philadelphia . I wonder why so many from one school.

8 Women are on the Wall. Nursing the wounded.

244 soldiers were awarded the Medal of Honor during the Vietnam War; 153 of them are on the Wall.

Beallsville, Ohio with a population of 475 lost 6 of her sons.

West Virginia had the highest casualty rate per capita in the nation. There are 711 West Virginians on the Wall.

The Marines of Morenci – They led some of the scrappiest high school football and basketball teams that the little Arizona copper town of Morenci (pop. 5,058) had ever known and cheered. They enjoyed roaring beer busts. In quieter moments, they rode horses along the Coronado Trail, stalked deer in the Apache National Forest . And in the patriotic camaraderie typical of Morenci’s mining families, the nine graduates of Morenci High enlisted as a group in the Marine Corps. Their service began on Independence Day, 1966. Only 3 returned home.

The Buddies of Midvale – LeRoy Tafoya, Jimmy Martinez, Tom Gonzales were all boyhood friends and lived on three consecutive streets in Midvale, Utah on Fifth, Sixth and Seventh avenues. They lived only a few yards apart. They played ball at the adjacent sandlot ball field. And they all went to Vietnam . In a span of 16 dark days in late 1967, all three would be killed. LeRoy was killed on Wednesday, Nov. 22, the fourth anniversary of John F. Kennedy’s assassination. Jimmy died less than 24 hours later on Thanksgiving Day. Tom was shot dead assaulting the enemy on Dec. 7, Pearl Harbor Remembrance Day.

The most casualty deaths for a single day was on January 31, 1968 ~ 245 deaths.

The most casualty deaths for a single month was May 1968 – 2,415 casualties were incurred.

For most Americans who read this they will only see the numbers that the Vietnam War created. To those of us who survived the war, and to the families of those who did not, we see the faces, we feel the pain that these numbers created. We are, until we too pass away, haunted with these numbers, because they were our friends, fathers, husbands, wives, sons and daughters. There are no noble wars, just noble warriors.

From the National League of Families for POW/MIA’s In Southeast Asia

My friend, Jim Butler, gave the keynote address. He reminded all of us how and why the SOA was formed. It certainly has changed over the years and I am not totally sure I am good with that.

Jim, Larry and I (friends since B Company, 1st Special Forces in Okinawa, 1968) along with one of Jim’s daughters, Lindsay and some strap hangers closed the bar and at 2am. Presley and I found the bus and headed out for the first rest stop about an hour away. When we got up that morning there was just one truck there with us and the rest stop was totally under construction! They said they were working at the other end and decided to just let us snooze away. Thanks for that!

Took the 5 home and kept the speed right at 60. I cannot believe the cars travelling at 70 or 90 right on the bumper of the car in front. Even saw one of those tiny smart cars. The tiny wheels looked like they were revolving about a million times a minute.

Presley was tired! He is not a party animal. He slept the entire way home. I wish I could have.

We averaged 19 mpg on the way home. I think  that it is uphill from Bakersfield to here but we’ll get a chance to do better next month when we do . . . “The big loop.”

The man replies, “I am on my way to a lecture about alcohol abuse and the effects it has on the human body, as well as smoking and staying out late.”

The officer then asks, “Really? Who is giving that lecture at this time of night?”

The man replies, “That would be my wife.”

If you can make it, post here http://www.sportsmobileforum.com/viewtopic.php?f=11&t=6159.

I use mine for water temperature, load, manifold pressure and miles per gallon. I love it when going down hill and the mpg shows 999999.

But what I would like to see is an app to show me where all the Safeway fuel stops are ($.10 discount is good!) and where the VA clinics are (just in case the old blood pressure starts to go up.). I’ve got the Starbucks one, Gas Buddy, Rest Stops (although it is hopelessly out of date).

While I am thinking about it, I’d like an app that scrolled the words to songs as they play either on the smart phone or the zune so I could sing along karaoke style. Can you get a ticket for that?

With the above app for your smart phone, this won’t happen to you. And the app is free which is pretty hard to beat. In the settings you can set to look for diesel only and since it knows where you are, it will give the prices by mileage.

Yesterday at the Shell diesel was $4.49.9 – highway robbery. I only took 5 gallons because I knew today I would be at the Safeway fuel stop where diesel, with my discount, was $4.05.9 – that is $8.80 still in my pocket.

You can’t afford not to have this app!

Oh, and a reminder. Don’t everystop at an Arco AM/PM. They add a $.45 transaction fee to every fuel purchase. What the heck is that all about?

Lack of viable enforcement was one of the key reasons the program ended, council members said. Although more than 180,000 drivers were ticketed under the program, which began in 2004, a city-authorized audit found that up to just 60 percent of the tickets were paid. Apparently, the manner in which the photo-enforcement law was written made compliance a voluntary action.

Wow, voluntary. Good thing the laws on bank robbery aren’t like that. I wish they would end these cameras everywhere. I have an alarm on my GPS that goes off when I am near one and scares me to death.

Presley’s friend

Last year I bought a cooler like this from Mighty Kool. It was expensive -  now-a-days what isn’t? I blogged about it here. When it got here I was quite disappointed. It didn’t cool like I expected and the motors have a high pitched whine to them so you have to run it on low or medium. I had planned to sell it at our garage sale but forgot about it.

With a trip to Disneyland coming up I thought I would try it again. I filled it with 40 pounds of crushed ice from Safeway and headed out. We took water out and added ice a couple of times but used it just to cool our drinks. We did not turn it on. It does an excellent job as a cooler but it is a little top heavy as expected and the ice melt rate was normal.

Parking in the Disneyland parking structure the second, since Presley was staying with the bus. I left this unit on the second speed. It did an exceptional job of helping to keep the bus cool. We were not in the sun. It was relatively cool. I cannot quantify degrees of difference but it helped.

You cannot expect any real cooling from this if you are parked in the sun or if the outside temperature is 11o° But using as a buffer, helper, what-ever-you-want to call it, it will work fine.  And it keeps the beer cold!