Ken Crouse

I joined the Marine Corps in June of 1973.

After the fall of Saigon, we were transported to Manila, Philippines. I was given the option of returning home but I decided I'd rather wait for another assignment as a U.S. Embassy Marine guard.

I was assigned to American Consulate General in Northern Ethiopia. I went there straight from Manila. I'd lost most of my gear so I traveled for four days in blue jeans, a polyester shirt with a small overnight bag.

I'd lost my typewriter, my camera with all the photos I'd taken of the evacuation.

I left the Marines in June of 1977. When I came back to the U.S. I worked for a title insurance company and went to Business College. I got married in 1981. I'm working now in telecommunications and have remarried.

Although my experience in Vietnam has impacted my life, I'm grateful for every day that I have.

At the age of 44 years old-- 25 years after the fall of Saigon, I do think about my fallen comrades in arms and how their lives might have been.

But I also am thoughtful about the lives of other former members of the detachment. Jim Viancourt died in Tehran while on Embassy Duty in 1975. Bob Frain passed away in January 1993 from a disease that was never diagnosed and is likely a result of a wound received in Vietnam. Jim Daisy ended his life early last year following many years of Post Traumatic Stress Disease, a disease still affecting Walt Sweeney and others. I think of Tim Creighton who sits in jail in Ohio, and others.

Yeah, at 44 years old, I am not the person I was 25 years ago. I am more appreciative of the opportunities that I have to enjoy the trails of Northern California and the measure of health that I have been granted. Incidentally, I have a son; he's a junior at Woodland High School where I went to school. He's almost exactly the same age I was when I joined the Marines.