It was many years later when I checked and discovered that more than 60 guys I knew died in Vietnam. I stopped counting then.
A roommate in AIT (when we had a cadre room in the barracks as acting NCOs) was awarded the Medal of Honor posthumously and my OCS roommate, who went on to Rucker for flight school to become a chopper pilot, crashed and died.
I didn't even count the guys who suicided afterward, like my first RTO in-country.
After Vietnam I didn't expect to live to see 30. Not that I had any conscious premonition, it was more of a subconscious feeling after seeing so many die so young. It just seemed normal because it was so normal for us there. And maybe a little survivor's guilt, too, expecting to be punished for making it.
I can't believe, and don't know why, I'm still here today. Still crazy after all these years, and still remembering absent friends. 
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