INTERESTING STORY OF MEMBER

I would like you to meet my best friend/brother I have ever had. Sorry it took so long to do this, but my expertise and technology has just arrived.

SGT Richard E Greene Jr. was already a member of the 1st Engr. BN., Ist Inf. Div. when I arrived in A Company 1st Engr. He was one of the first men I met that evening when my helicopter landed with another NCO, July 1966. Twenty minutes later we had a mortar attack, scared shitless. I don't think I took my clothes off for a week or two. Did not want my ass hanging out.

Sgt Greene kind of took me in tow and showed me the bunker and after the attack the Company's 1st Sgt assigned me to the same Platoon as Sgt Greene, I believe I had 3rd Sqd and Richard had 2nd. Well our friendship developed fast & we hung out together in base camp and on missions in the field whenever the Platoon was together. We developed a story we told everyone, that we were really brothers by birth. We had the same Mother but different Fathers. Well, we told it very convincingly and I think every one bought it.

One of the rare times we were in base camp in Phuoc Vinh, the Red Cross had set up a tent with some goodies and a small dish with names of people who wanted to be pen pals. Richard picked up a name and was writing her up until I was wounded in '67. I have a lot of pictures of our time in Vietnam that Richard took. I got a little suscpious after some time of pic taking and asked Richard, "Why are you taking so many pictures of me?" He confessed that the girl in the States wanted a picture of him. He said, he did not want the correspondence to stop so he was sending pics of me to her, saying that the man in the picture was him. This letter writing & pics sparked a romance that he admitted got out of control. Well, things kind of work out for themselves. In April '67, I was wounded and in June Richard was killed, which I did not find out til years later.

Somehow, this girl got an address for me after I was stateside and started writing to me. The story is a little fuzzy after all these years, but I told her I was not the person who had been writing to her. She indicated that didn't matter because she was in love with the man in the picture. Little did she know that I am as far from a letter writer as you can get, say anything about being some kind of Don Juan on paper. Long and short of it, she wanted to come to Ft. Riley where I was stationed to hook up. I said ok. Then I met my wife to be before she had a chance to fly in and I had to get myself out of this potential meeting in a hurry. I was falling fast for by soon to be wife and sure didn't want anything to mess that up. My wife still to this day tells me how lucky I am that she kept me from getting with this woman. She is sure right about that!

I am enclosing a picture of Richard. The pic will make a lot of things clear and show you that he and I were sure some good bullshitters to carry off being brothers. I miss him til this day. He was the best friend I'll ever have.