Things He Sent Home In 1968

Описание: My friend, Mike Holden, passed away in October 2023. He told me this story a few years ago.

Vietnam Veteran Mike Holden told me incredible stories about his service and combat experience.

"The box was to put our personal gear meaning if we had civilian clothes, if we had anything of any value that we wanted in this box for security," Mike Holden said. "I signed a piece of paper, itemized what was in it."

When Mike Holden was fighting across Vietnam in '68 that box would sit in a big warehouse until he would return to the rear area.

He told me he only made it back to the rear three times that year.

"They went to this location 54/4, pulled the wooden box, lifted it up," Mike Holden said. "I signed it, nailed it back up. The guy signed it, nailed it back up, and put it back on the shelf."

When he left Vietnam they shipped the box back to his parents house. He got home and opened it. He showed his parents what was inside and then put it in his his parents attic and forgot about it.

He didn't open it again for 38 years.

Over the last several years he's done a lot of research on the war.

He's writing down his memories so his family will always have a record.

He went and found dozens of veterans he fought with. A few weeks ago he showed us the things he sent home in that box from 1968.

"This is the shirt that I wore out of the field. That's my shirt," Mike Holden said.

He showed us things loved ones sent him and others things that he picked up along the way.

"These are suspenders. I weighed 231 pounds before I went to Vietnam. I weighed 167 when I left," Mike Holden said.

His original orders are in here and his Army medical records.

He showed us everything he sent home in the box from things he carried for 360 days in combat to some things that once belonged to an enemy combatant to lucky charms sent to him by school children in his hometown

Mike Holden wrote this about the war, "It's a two year Odyssey that will last our life time." Mr. Holden came home from war more than 50 years ago and he's still talking about and thinking about the things he saw and the things he brought home from the war in Vietnam.