Wednesday, March 05, 2008

For a Vietnam Soldier that Went Missing on the Day I Was Born

The Memorial Bracelet arrived this morning and it is superb.

Until recently I have had no interest in the Vietnam War; my main interests are the Canadian and British Armies in the Great War and the 1745 Jacobite Rising.

Some time last year I kept having recurring dreams of being in a jungle clearing and coming under fire. Nothing too strange really as I had been in the British Army (Royal Military Police) and we used to do exercises in wooded areas and I thought that was what I was dreaming about.

Then one dream went a little further than the others, only a bit but this time I managed to see more around me; and something made me think that this was like watching a Vietnam War film. This puzzled me a bit as I had never watched a Vietnam War film in my life.

Anyway, this led me to start looking at the Vietnam War in a bit more depth, and whilst just browsing and putting in family names and dates of birth I was surprised to find Private Robert J. Todd’s details which showed him MIA on the very day I was born.

Funnily enough I also found another tenuous link with the Vietnam War whilst in a North London cemetery where I was cleaning up a family grave. On a smoke break I ‘stumbled’ on a grave to a Sgt Arthur Fisher USMC who was KIA in Vietnam. I was extremely surprised to find a man from Ireland (according to the grave stone) who served in the USMC was killed in Vietnam and was buried in England!

All the best,

Lee

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