After Mike shipped out to Viet Nam, I kept in touch with his mother and sister for news of how he was doing. They kept a brave face but I could tell it weighed heavily upon them while Mike was at war. As I type this message, I think of helping him work on his 1958 Chevrolet to get it ready for the drag strip on Sundays. Mike had to grow up fast in the Army and he showed us all his commitment to what it meant to be a soldier by saving his squad as he sacrificed his own life. How many of us could exhibit that kind of devotion to duty? When the travelling wall was at Offutt a few years ago, I went up to the booth to ask where I could find Mike on the wall. I was so overcome with emotion that I could barely speak. His loss is as real today as it was all those years ago. So as I sit here typing these words, tears run down my cheeks for what might have been. I am grateful to have known Mike. With eternal love, Richard Berg.
Hughleen Thorsen
Hello Michael, my friend of old. In writing this, I am finally able to keep the promise I made to you so very, very long ago when you did not come home from Vietnam. It has taken years, but thanks to so many people who remember you and the others who did not come back from the war, you are being memorialized at the Nebraska Vietnam Veteran’s Monument in Sarpy County. I wish it would have been different, and you would have come back to Valley with your smiling face to say hello again to your family and friends and all those you once knew. But rest assured, over these past decades you have been remembered and not forgotten. Every August 26th, I always remember how we went to the Douglas County Fair with Mark Cady and had so much fun; and when coming home hearing the song on your car radio, “See you in September,” and you saying to me, “Hey, listen, that will be the next time I see you.” So my friend, much time has passed since that special day, but I will see you sooner rather than later now. Until then, Mike, continued God’s speed and eternal happiness in the Heaven that awaited you that January day in 1967 when God whisked you away from the battlefield in South Vietnam to an eternity where all those you have loved and known will one day meet again.
Blessings, Michael.
Your forever friend……HT
After Mike shipped out to Viet Nam, I kept in touch with his mother and sister for news of how he was doing. They kept a brave face but I could tell it weighed heavily upon them while Mike was at war. As I type this message, I think of helping him work on his 1958 Chevrolet to get it ready for the drag strip on Sundays. Mike had to grow up fast in the Army and he showed us all his commitment to what it meant to be a soldier by saving his squad as he sacrificed his own life. How many of us could exhibit that kind of devotion to duty? When the travelling wall was at Offutt a few years ago, I went up to the booth to ask where I could find Mike on the wall. I was so overcome with emotion that I could barely speak. His loss is as real today as it was all those years ago. So as I sit here typing these words, tears run down my cheeks for what might have been. I am grateful to have known Mike. With eternal love, Richard Berg.
Hello Michael, my friend of old. In writing this, I am finally able to keep the promise I made to you so very, very long ago when you did not come home from Vietnam. It has taken years, but thanks to so many people who remember you and the others who did not come back from the war, you are being memorialized at the Nebraska Vietnam Veteran’s Monument in Sarpy County. I wish it would have been different, and you would have come back to Valley with your smiling face to say hello again to your family and friends and all those you once knew. But rest assured, over these past decades you have been remembered and not forgotten. Every August 26th, I always remember how we went to the Douglas County Fair with Mark Cady and had so much fun; and when coming home hearing the song on your car radio, “See you in September,” and you saying to me, “Hey, listen, that will be the next time I see you.” So my friend, much time has passed since that special day, but I will see you sooner rather than later now. Until then, Mike, continued God’s speed and eternal happiness in the Heaven that awaited you that January day in 1967 when God whisked you away from the battlefield in South Vietnam to an eternity where all those you have loved and known will one day meet again.
Blessings, Michael.
Your forever friend……HT