Coming Home: Father, Son, and the Long Slow Fade of Vietnam

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• tim August 9, 2019, 5:44 AM

  Welcome home Colonel.

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• Dan Patterson August 9, 2019, 5:55 AM

  Son of a BITCH that shit still hurts.
  Blessed rest for the formerly lost, and peace to family and friends.

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• Casey Klahn August 9, 2019, 9:16 AM

  I didn’t go to Vietnam, because I joined in 1975 at the age of 17. My dad was a WWII combat vet.

  Vietnam. HFS. Everyone in my infantry unit that was a little older than I was a combat vet from Vietnam, and I remember most all of them. Their stories. Their eyes. One guy chopped off a VC’s head with his entrenching tool because he lost his rifle when he was shot by the guy. Another had nightmares at night after being a point man in a rifle platoon. He taught me so many skills I became a subject matter expert in my weapons system. He knew it all, upside down and backwards. Another couldn’t hold a job after coming home because one supervisor asked the asshole question: if he’d ever killed a kid. Yes, he had. The kid ran headlong into the grill of his 5 ton truck and there was no reaction time. He was spat upon when he entered the airport in SF on his return home.

  Heroes. Hard men.

  Other wars had tragedy, that’s not an argument. But Vietnam was an epic tragedy at the individual level.

  My HS classmate’s brother came home 20 plus years late, in a small box. He wouldn’t stop flying his helicopter into withering fire because he was looking for his downed squadron commander. He was killed in this selfless act – put in for the medal but got the Distinguished Service Cross posthumously.

  I never went, but I have my own memories of the era. I didn’t protest; I served. I don’t give a flying fuck for those who protested.

  Sorry to say “I” so much. These are my personal observances of the war and the war era. They show how I feel.

  If you say you’re against the Vietnam War even once, you have a piece of ice hanging on your heart. You fucking shit.

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• David August 9, 2019, 9:36 AM

  They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old:
  Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn.
  At the going down of the sun and in the morning
  We will remember them.

  We did not forget Colonel Knight. Someone, his family foremost, remembered.

  Godspeed Colonel. Welcome home at last.
  Rest in Peace

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• Snakepit Kansas August 9, 2019, 6:10 PM

  Casey,
  I spent a few days in Saigon and the Cu Chi tunnels in 2003. I had read so much about Vietnam and since I was living and working in Asia, I had to go see first hand. I have a favorite picture of myself after the tunnel tour standing in front of a pile of old and benign American military munitions holding a Tiger beer. Even in the shade I was soaked in sweat. I can only image adding a flak vest, steel pot, full ruck and ammo for the pig.

  As you are well aware the DSC is just below the MOH. One must just about die to get such awarded.

  I have a book covering all the stories of guys in Vietnam winning the MOH. Have Gerard give me your address and I will mail it to you.

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• Nori August 9, 2019, 9:00 PM

  What a handsome man Col. Roy Knight is.Beautiful family.
  Of course,all pilots are good looking,it’s a basic requirement.

  What an honor for his son, Captain of another type of aircraft,to bring his Dad back.
  Welcome home,Sir.
  Rest in Peace.

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