Fourth Platoon's new lieutenant, writes Grady Myers in Boocoo Dinky Dow, "was a stocky Californian with a thick moustache that curled up on the ends. He told us how he used to live on the third floor of a warehouse in L.A."  His name was George and he was "so mature, a natural officer."

George was also one of three men who were killed on March 5, 1969. That's when members of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 8th Regiment, 4th Infantry Division, walked into an ambush near the Cambodian border. He is the only soldier lost that day who is mentioned by name in the book -- and then, only by his first name, because that is how Grady remembered the popular platoon leader. In the ambush chapter of the memoir, he recalls how the last words the lieutenant said may have been some good-natured ribbing that he gave Grady.  And he recalls the impact of George's death.

The medic returned to bandage my arm, rewrap my leg wounds and tear open my bloody shirt to look for more damage. Then he moved on to another wounded man who was lying a couple of yards to the left. To my right was George’s body.

George’s death had devastated the radio operator, who had been his friend, assistant and roommate for nearly a month. I could hear the big RTO crying like a kid into the phone as he called in air strikes. His sobs were more easily understood than his directions. George was dead. The lieutenant was gone.

I'm grateful to Charlie Company veteran Bob Robbins for supplying George Callan's last name, as well as the name of that heartbroken radio operator: Dennis Harris. I'm grateful to DelShahn, the volunteer at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, who sent me an etching of Lt. Callan's name as it appears on the Wall in Washington, D.C.

Most especially this Memorial Day, I am deeply aware of the sacrifices George and the others who died in Vietnam, and of men like Grady, who suffered greatly because of the war but lived to share their stories.

Bridging the gap between composition explosives and literary composition, Victor Villanueva Jr. survived combat in Vietnam and went on to become a distinguished professor of English. Not bad for a high school dropout. 

When one of his colleagues at Washington State University told me Victor served in the Army in Vietnam, I contacted him out of the blue and asked if he would be the guest reader at "Boocoo Dinky Dow" book event  at the Neill Public Library in Pullman. I explained that I always invite a man, usually a veteran, to join me at readings to give voice to Grady, who died in 2011.

Victor graciously agreed. When he read Grady's memoir, he was astounded to realize he may actually have seen Grady in Vietnam. "I was in country August 1968 to September 1969. Grady and I were in the same place during much of the same time! This is eerie!"

Victor's 13 months in country -- six months as a grunt, the rest as a clerk -- overlapped with Grady's three months. He'd been to Fire Support Base 30, where Grady's squad leader gave him the nickname Hoss and made him an M-60 machine gunner.

He was also at Blackhawk, a camp where he heard the explosions that Grady describes in "Boocoo Dinky Dow," one of the many exploits that cemented Charlie Company’s reputation as Combustion Charlie. It was, officially, C Company, 1st of the 8th, 4th Infantry Division. Victor's best friend was its clerk.

"His name was Charles Shinedling, so we called him Shingaling like the song and the dance," said Victor, whose own buddies called him Vanilla Wafer, a riff on his Puerto Rican last name.

Victor was also a clerk in the first 1st of the 8th, working for Delta Company. Before that, in combat mode, he carried a radio with an antennae that extended above his head. It was heavy. Victor, who is not a big guy, laughed as he recalled falling backwards onto the ground every time he hopped off a helicopter.

Grady's story brought back intense memories for Victor. Such as seeing a buddy die, intestines spilled onto the ground. He described how his squad once fired madly at night-time movement in the jungle, discovering in daylight that they had decimated a record-sized Bengal tiger.

Victor's stories, along with his thoughts on the draft system and racism’s role in war, enriched the Pullman reading.  At the upcoming "Boocoo Dinky Dow" event at the National Veterans Art Museum in Chicago, the guest reader will be a veteran who was too changed by Vietnam to finish college and live out his dream of being a teacher. Now, he uses art to teach younger generations about the impact of war.

Maree McHugh is a good-hearted Idaho nurse who loves being a weekend deejay.  One of her heroes is Adrian Cronauer, the inspiration for Robin Williams' character in the 1987 war comedy "Good Morning, Vietnam." It stands to reason she would like "Boocoo Dinky Dow: My short, crazy Vietnam War," which is punctuated by Grady's humor. She said it's the only book she's been able to bring herself to read about the war. I've also heard that from some veterans.

Maree interviewed me about the book on January 20, 2013. She really did her homework, and started the live interview with a quick recap of the war.  She asked me to read several passages and to give some personal perspective on Grady, to whom I was married in the 1980s. And -- this was totally cool -- she interspersed our conversation with songs from the soundtrack of "Good Morning, Vietnam."

The hour-plus interview is archived on the website of KRFP, Radio Free Moscow. You can listen to it here.  Or you can listen to an eight-minute excerpt and see some of Grady's art in this Youtube video.

Maree isn't a veteran. In fact, she protested America's involvement in Vietnam. But she is eager to thank veterans for bearing the burden of our wars.  Many thanks to her for helping me share Grady's stories.

On the air, Maree read this Richard Nixon quote, which I'm doing my small part to prove wrong: "No event in American history is more misunderstood than the Vietnam War. It was misreported then, and it is misremembered now."