Arriving at a military base located near Qui Nhon - a coastal city in central Vietnam - during the second week of October 1967, Buchta wrote home to his family in Lohman the following month ...

But that’s not how he reached Blum and the other nurses and doctors in the operating room of the 12th Evacuation Hospital in Cu Chi Vietnam one hot, humid day in 1967.

KILLEEN — Retired U.S. Air Force Lt. Col. Floyd Smith arrived for duty in Vietnam in 1967 and flew the first of more than 300 combat missions the very next day.