Shadow box

He spent the last year of his life in the Cincinnati VA Hospital after suffering a ruptured aortic aneurysm. Rick enlisted in the Army when he was 17. (Dec. 28,1966) He did basic at Ft. Knox. The day he was to deploy to Germany, they found a tumor in his foot (heel) . He was laid up for 9 months. When he was fully recovered, it is my understanding, the Army deployed him to Nam. Rick served in Nam from 9/68 to 9/69. Rick was discharged Honorable 9/16/1969 at the rank of SP4. His total service was 2 years 7 months and 20 days. Foreign service 11 months 24 days. Commendations include “Service Medal” “ Medal “ Medal “ and Purple Heart. Spiro Farrugia was with Rick was on track 18 , Feb 2,1969 when Rick got hit.. Spiro writes “yea Rick was hit in the face . We were shoulder to shoulder on 18 track . We had 4 men straddling the hatch. I was on the left firing the 60, he was on the right , all hell broke loose.. next thing I felt him tugging on my sleeve saying “I'm hit.” I turn and he's looking me right in the eyes asking me he how bad was it ? Man ,he had blood all over his face. I had just put on a clean shirt because the TV News crew came along and in case my mom was going to watch it on TV, I wanted to look good, so anyway ,I didn't want him to panic, so I changed the subject and started saying , oh man ,you got blood all over my only clean shirt, then we got him dusted off back to base camp. “ You guys were only boys fighting a war no one in our government allowed you to win .My brother came back from that war and was spit on by war protestors . No one knew what PTSD was at that time. He didn't ask to go over there. He was sent there by his government . He never recovered. He was never able to hold a job. He finally got a job at Bass Pro selling guns. He finally found his calling. He died one year later. He was and will always be my big brother. He looked after me when we were growing up. We were only 15 months apart in age. He was not my hero, just my big bro.

Niehaus, Richard, R, SP 4