DECATUR -- Decatur,
IL, March 6, 2004--When Larry Oliver and Bob Reed were buddies in
Vietnam, they sprayed warm beer cans with fire extinguishers to cool
them.
This weekend, Oliver,
of Decatur, and Reed, both 55, are having their first cold beer together
in 35 years. The two met in Vietnam in 1968, when both were 20-year-olds
in the Army's 101st Airborne Division.
They came to be close
friends, watching each other's back at an Army base in Bien Hoa,
Vietnam.
"In a place like
that, you always stayed with friends," Reed said.
They lost track of
each other after the war, said Oliver, who now works as a plumber and
pipe-fitter.
Reed's phone number in
Fisher, Pa., was hard to find until the enhanced 911 system went into
effect there. When it did, a mutual friend, Ike Fennel, of Buffalo,
Okla., put Oliver in touch with Reed.
Reed, a laborer, had
some time off from work and decided to make the trip with his wife,
Barbara, to visit his old friend. Fennel was unable to come, but they
hope to see him soon.
The two reunited
Saturday at the Decatur home Oliver shares with his wife, Diana. They
looked at faded pictures and yellowed newspaper clippings but couldn't
find a picture where they were together. Later, they planned to have a
cookout with their wives and finally drink that beer.
"I think about
those guys, but I'd like to forget the times over there," Reed
said.
Reed and Oliver were
military police officers, transporting money and guarding the gates of
the base. The heat was scorching, mosquitoes were everywhere and they
came to appreciate the simple pleasures in life, like clean water and
good food.
Behind the Army base
was an air base that Reed and Oliver describe as one of the busiest in
the world at that time. Enemy troops were constantly firing rockets at
the air base's runways, but they usually landed short, striking the base
where the two were stationed.
"We had 10
seconds from the time radar picked them up to get from dead sleep to a
bunker," Oliver said.
When Oliver first
landed at the base, mortar fire rained down. It was a hint of what was
to come.
On Feb. 25, 1969, both
were stationed at the gates of the base at about daybreak when they
spotted tracer fire. The road lit up, and Reed and Oliver ran into an
old French bunker. They stayed there for 19 hours, without even a
canteen of water.
After all they went
through together, Diana Oliver said her husband was tickled to find Reed
again. She and her husband are looking for another soldier he knew who
is living in Tampa, Fla. Diana Oliver said she's not quick to warm up to
new people, but it was different with the Reeds.
"They felt like
family when we first met them," she said.
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