buggyone
03-27-2014, 08:06 PM
March 28 is my birthday and I am very happy to be 69 years old today. I have no regrets. I have a wonderful wife, an equally wonderful daughter, and am blessed to be living in The Villages.
Please read the following (it is a little long) of another person born on March 28 of the same year. I always have some thoughts of how lucky I was not to go to Vietnam but also of why them and not me. God was definitely looking after me and obviously there is still something for me to do. Please read what I posted on the Vietnam Virtual Wall quite a few years ago. I will be having dinner tonight with some great Villages friends but I will also be drinking a silent toast to James R. Williams and saluting him. He deserves it.
James Randall Williams
Senior Master Sergeant
DET 1 (NHA TRANG), 314TH TAC ALFT WG, 13TH AF
United States Air Force
28 March 1945 - 24 June 1977
Charlotte, North Carolina
Panel 33E Line 001
(Begin account written by xxxxxx (Buggyone).
This account began for me in 1971 and came to closure on December 29, 2000. I will shorten it as much as possible but still will get all pertinent information included. Please bear with me.
I had been honorably discharged from the Army in 1969 and attended college afterward. In 1971, I sent away for a POW/MIA bracelet from one of the national POW committees. I received a silver metal bracelet with the name of James R. Williams, T/SGT, USAF, and the date of 12/29/67 inscribed on it. I wore the bracelet for a while until I graduated from college and then put it away in a box and stored it at my parent's house. I had forgotten James R. Williams at that point.
I was visiting my mother on Memorial Day, 1999, and she gave me a box of my old stuff to take home with me. Mom is always trying to get me to take things out of her basement and over to my house. Well, the POW/MIA bracelet was right on top. I put it on my wrist and felt sort of an electric chill go through my body. At that point, I decided to try and find out more information on James R. Williams.
I found some sites on the Internet that looked promising and went to The Virtual Wall website. Sure enough, James R. Williams was listed as still being MIA. The information that followed sent more of a chill through me than did putting on the bracelet. James R. William and I shared the same birthday - month, day, and year! What are the chances that I would have received his MIA bracelet through a random selection? On Memorial Day, 1999, I posted a memorial message on the VVMF web site for James but I still wanted more information.
Through research, I found more information on James' last mission in Vietnam and that he had presumably died in a plane crash but no remains had been recovered. In October, 2000, I received an e-mail from an active duty Air Force sergeant who had studied this plane crash and the deaths of the persons aboard it. He sent me pages of information as well as a photograph of James Williams from 1967. The remains had been recovered from villagers and were being buried in a common grave at Arlington National Cemetery in November, 2000. I was invited to attend the funeral service but felt I might be considered an intruder to the families and declined the invitation.
It was now December, 2000, and I still had the POW/MIA bracelet and also the knowledge of exactly what happened that night of December 29, 1967. I was thinking about what should be my next step. It was now time for closure on my part. On December 29, 2000, I went with my daughter to the Vietnam Memorial and slowly walked to Panel 33 East. I took the bracelet off my wrist, touched it to James' name on the panel, and placed the bracelet on the black granite base of the Wall. I said a last goodbye, wiped away a tear, turned and left.
The bracelet has made a full circle.
Please read the following (it is a little long) of another person born on March 28 of the same year. I always have some thoughts of how lucky I was not to go to Vietnam but also of why them and not me. God was definitely looking after me and obviously there is still something for me to do. Please read what I posted on the Vietnam Virtual Wall quite a few years ago. I will be having dinner tonight with some great Villages friends but I will also be drinking a silent toast to James R. Williams and saluting him. He deserves it.
James Randall Williams
Senior Master Sergeant
DET 1 (NHA TRANG), 314TH TAC ALFT WG, 13TH AF
United States Air Force
28 March 1945 - 24 June 1977
Charlotte, North Carolina
Panel 33E Line 001
(Begin account written by xxxxxx (Buggyone).
This account began for me in 1971 and came to closure on December 29, 2000. I will shorten it as much as possible but still will get all pertinent information included. Please bear with me.
I had been honorably discharged from the Army in 1969 and attended college afterward. In 1971, I sent away for a POW/MIA bracelet from one of the national POW committees. I received a silver metal bracelet with the name of James R. Williams, T/SGT, USAF, and the date of 12/29/67 inscribed on it. I wore the bracelet for a while until I graduated from college and then put it away in a box and stored it at my parent's house. I had forgotten James R. Williams at that point.
I was visiting my mother on Memorial Day, 1999, and she gave me a box of my old stuff to take home with me. Mom is always trying to get me to take things out of her basement and over to my house. Well, the POW/MIA bracelet was right on top. I put it on my wrist and felt sort of an electric chill go through my body. At that point, I decided to try and find out more information on James R. Williams.
I found some sites on the Internet that looked promising and went to The Virtual Wall website. Sure enough, James R. Williams was listed as still being MIA. The information that followed sent more of a chill through me than did putting on the bracelet. James R. William and I shared the same birthday - month, day, and year! What are the chances that I would have received his MIA bracelet through a random selection? On Memorial Day, 1999, I posted a memorial message on the VVMF web site for James but I still wanted more information.
Through research, I found more information on James' last mission in Vietnam and that he had presumably died in a plane crash but no remains had been recovered. In October, 2000, I received an e-mail from an active duty Air Force sergeant who had studied this plane crash and the deaths of the persons aboard it. He sent me pages of information as well as a photograph of James Williams from 1967. The remains had been recovered from villagers and were being buried in a common grave at Arlington National Cemetery in November, 2000. I was invited to attend the funeral service but felt I might be considered an intruder to the families and declined the invitation.
It was now December, 2000, and I still had the POW/MIA bracelet and also the knowledge of exactly what happened that night of December 29, 1967. I was thinking about what should be my next step. It was now time for closure on my part. On December 29, 2000, I went with my daughter to the Vietnam Memorial and slowly walked to Panel 33 East. I took the bracelet off my wrist, touched it to James' name on the panel, and placed the bracelet on the black granite base of the Wall. I said a last goodbye, wiped away a tear, turned and left.
The bracelet has made a full circle.