Served in Vietnam, U.S. Army
503rd Infantry, 173rd Airborne Brigade
1965-66

About the Artist:

Served with the first army combat unit deployed to Vietnam

From the Artwork:

Such Honor!

Seems like a thousand years gone bye
since the fifth of May in sixty-five.
It was then we uncovered our battle flag
and the colours so proudly and softly wagged.
Seems like a thousand years ago-
but then again...but a moment or so.

We were the chosen...the soldiers of glory
forever to be read of...at the first of the story.
Some knew us as sky soldiers...
some as Rakasan
and history writes of us
as the first into Nam.

The first combat soldiers
history does not deny...
the tough paratroopers
who brought "Death from the Sky!"

Twenty five hundred
of an elite Airborne Brigade
The Best called to Battle
All American made.

We came from the island
our home called "The Rock"
Okinawa we missed you-
your beauty and people
we never forgot.

We were the best of the rest
though we sought not the name...
yet bold and courageous
and for Freedom we came.

Twenty five hundred
of an elite Airborne Brigade
the Best called to Battle
All American made.

Long live the Honor
on Historys first page
of the First into Battle
when the war gone first raged.

Long live the Honor
to be a trooper those days
paratroopers in History
the One Seventy Third-
The only Airborne Brigade.