There isn’t much that would distinguish Charlie from anyone else in a room. Maybe his deep Tennessee accent, but that’s about it.

But he was the typical 19 year-old kid, caught up in events out of his control. He was a passenger on a train he would never have chosen to get on.

He was easy to like – polite and he laughed a lot. He also didn’t dislike anyone. Charlie was one of those guys that you would say, ‘didn’t have a bad bone in his body.’

He couldn’t wait to get home to see his family again. And I expect, outside the deep Tennessee accent, he was just like any one of us.

Which is why I started crying when I saw his name on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall. He was my dad’s best friend. He was the “uncle” I never got to grow up with.

Charlie and my dad met the very first day of boot camp and were never apart after that. They were two young kids still trying to figure out what was about to happen to them. Six weeks later when they got their orders to ship out, they saw they were both assigned to the same platoon. A little while after that, when my dad was promoted to Sergeant, Charlie was assigned to his squad. Like I say, since that first day of boot camp, they were side-by-side.

My dad and Charlie used to talk about life after Vietnam. About how they would drive to each others houses on the weekend and how their kids would play together.

Then August 1969 rolls around. The platoon is out on patrol when they are called for a rescue mission. A huey went down and the orders were for their platoon to go to the area to get the pilots out.

As they are entering the area, something in my father’s head tells him something is not quite right. So he runs up to the front and tells the Lieutenant that he fears the platoon is walking into an ambush. The Lt. does what a lot of cocky young Lt’s with no experience do — he waves his hand at my father and blurts out, “I know what the fuck I’m doing, get back in line.”

The Vietnamese soldiers were strategic. They knew that with a chopper down, the American’s would probably be coming to check it out. So they dug in around the area and waited. As that platoon entered the zone, they had the opportunity for the first shot.

Near the back of the line are two guys, walking not far apart from each other – my dad and Charlie. I wonder how that Vietnamese solder ultimately picked which one he was going to shoot.

However he chose, its Charlie’s name on the wall now. As I stood there last week, all I could do is cry as I looked at his name and tried not to think about how things could have been different.