Steve Veltri and I went through Special Forces Training Group together in the Medical Aidman program, we were on the same team for Final Phase Training after forty weeks of medical and went to the same platoon at 6th Group after that. We spent our final weeks Stateside together at the 6th Group motor pool. We went to Viet Nam at the same time and did the Hon Tre Island Combat Orientation Course together. Then were both assigned to C Company in Bien Hoa. We were then sent to separate Special Forces A-Team Camps. I was sent to Bu Dop and Steve was sent to Loc Ninh, the next camp along the Cambodian border below Bu Dop. Both were active camps, under siege at the time and I think Steve saw a good bit more combat than I did, at least according to the war stories we told Tuesday.
We talked, at least once, on radio while at those camps.
Steve and I have been in E-mail contact for quite some time, but we haven't seen each other since October, 1969, forty-eight years ago.
Steve and his wife have lived in Broward and Palm Beach Counties in South Florida, but bought land pursuant to retirement in the Panhandle, just over an hour's drive from my sister, so, as I was visiting her this week, Steve and I arranged a meeting.
Sarah and I made the drive and met them in a popular local restaurant near their home.
He's still slim, hasn't changed much, except he's older, seventy-one, and grey. He's ten months older than I.
He retired from The Florida Highway Patrol after more than thirty years service and was a lieutenant homicide detective when he quit.
We had a nice lunch beginning at noon and we were still at our table talking at three-thirty. We were just about the only ones still there from the lunch crowd. Waitress had cleared and reset all the other tables in her area. She had come by and told us she got off work at three and Steve's wife told her we had not seen each other for forty-eight years. She said she would gladly redo the table the next morning.
We talked for a bit longer, Steve and I telling those war stories and the wives doing girl talk and looking at photos of children and grandchildren.
We still were not talked out. Marsha, Steve's wife, popped up with, "Let's go to our house and fix dinner." So, that's what we did.
Sarah and I followed them through the winding road, multiple turn nine mile journey.
Got the grand tour of the little paradise they are creating, had one of the best spaghetti dinners I've ever had and we talked some more.
They are rehabbing a circa 1950 farm house on seventy-five acres of wooded property. Steve hunts deer within sight of his back door. There's a fish pond about one acre in size.
We looked at Steve's old photos, some of which included me.
Finally had to leave in order to get back to my sister's by nine. My dogs were there and needed tending to.
Steve will not even consider Facebook, but Marsha is on there, so I'm going to "Friend" her.
He's as stubborn as ever and hasn't seen a doctor in over ten years. He's very active and has done most of the work on their place himself, including enlarging two rooms and relocating the bathroom. He has a work shop to die for.
We all need to have a face-to-face with as many of our old military friends as we can. Most of mine have already died.
I'm going to try to get Steve to go to a 5th Special Forces Group Reunion with me. That's the Group that we were in in Viet Nam. He is a Special Forces Association member and attended the Jacksonville meeting a year or so ago. I have never bothered to join that. No reason, really. But, their meeting in 2019 will be back in Jacksonville again. I'll join if I can get Steve to agree to go.
Steve, Marsha, Sarah and I had a great day and evening together.
Hopefully, this won't be the last time the four of us get together. We were invited back.
Charlie Noyes
