LOUISVILLE, Ky. (WHAS11) -- It is a time in our history most will never fully comprehend unless they were there. In the late 60s, more than 600,000 Americans got the call to serve in Vietnam.
Nathaniel King was just 18-years-old when the letter came in the mail.
"I was called, and I went. You know? I served. I did my time,” says King. "I was there for a year. I spent 364 days in Vietnam. We were there doing what our government thought was right.”
King says it was a common theology if you could make it the first three weeks in the country, you would survive your deployment. It was a battle every day just to stay alive.
"War is hell and you just don't know what could happen. I know I was lucky. I was lucky quite a few times. Somebody was watching over me quite a few times,” says King.
Friends from the foxhole
Twenty-five percent of the soldiers who served in Vietnam were draftees. King fought alongside men from all over the United States from all kinds of backgrounds. As soldiers, it was not a war of politics. It was simply survival.
"A friend is somebody you can trust in a foxhole that's going to watch your back because you are going to watch theirs and once you can figure out who that is, you don't lose that friendship. All the guys that were in our unit. That's the way we feel,” says King.
After his service, King returned home to Louisville. He married his wife Caroline and raised two sons. Life seemed to return to normal, but he never forgot the men he fought beside. Several years ago, one fellow soldier Keith Flom found his phone number and gave him a call.
"Veterans day would come, and it would be like "Who's going to call first?" and he would usually beat me,” said King.
Flom found several other soldiers from their unit the 25th Division 2nd Battalion 22nd Mechanized Infantry and a few months ago gave King another call that took him by surprise.
"With me having the problem, the breathing problem, he calls me up one day and says hey we're coming to see you. I said what do you mean we are coming to see you? He says I got some guys together and we are going to come down to Louisville and spend some time with you and have a 50-year reunion and this is how it all got started,” says King.
Now 50 years later - he is about to see six more of his brothers from war. They have never reunited since leaving Vietnam in 1968.
"Man, I'm just trying to figure out what we gonna [sic] talk about for two days?" says King.
At the Crowne Plaza hotel in Louisville, seven men who fought shoulder to shoulder now find themselves side by side.
"You have in your mind 50 years ago what everybody looked like. What were they going to look like now? You know?” said Larry Vanloo who flew in from Michigan.
Pat Marchoine came in from Phoenix, Arizona, Ernest Tucker from New Hampshire, Keith Flom from California, Joe Remus and John Pickareli from Pennsylvania.
“I have a little book at home that had all of you guys’ addresses but 50 years later, who’s to know if they still live there?” said Vanloo.
The power of the internet brought them all to the same place at the same time for the first time since leaving Vietnam.
"We were all 18, 19-years-old and you just form a bond no matter where you are from or whatever, you just form a bond and then when you go, that bond is always there,” said Marchione.
For two days they looked through hundreds of photos and relived the time in their lives only they can understand.
"To me, anybody that went there and wasn't scared? They are lying to you,” said Vanloo.“You are going over there and you may not come back.”
"You couldn't talk to anybody. Your parents, your loved ones or nothing. It took a lot of toll, that's a big toll on a lot of people,” said Pickareli.
"You're still jittery even after all those years. A big bang or whatever, it startles you,” said Marchione.
"I just wish we had more of the guys still alive to show up. Brings back good memories but also it brings back bad memories,” said Tucker. "Had five guys that joined up from New Hampshire that all became medics. All five died in Vietnam."
For these men, it wasn’t just the war in Vietnam that left its mark. It is the struggles they faced when they came back home that made life even more difficult.
"The last thing they told us there was if you can get civilian clothes to wear home, you'd be a lot better off,” said Flom.
After returning home from Vietnam, Flom recalled his experience applying for unemployment.
“I can still see that lady’s face. I took out my orders and pushed the paper over there and she says ‘You’re a Vietnam veteran’ This is 1970. She pushed it back to me and says other people need it worse than you,” said Flom.
The conversation lasted for hours covering everything from VA benefits to politics including the new perspectives they have on the Vietnam War 50 years later.
"At that time, we didn't know if it was right or wrong but we did it anyway. And now that we look back on it, it was useless,” said King.
"Whoever was running the deal, they send them into a war situation with their hands tied behind their back. There is no way you're going to win. There is no way,” said Vanloo.
"We are still kind of the forgotten warriors if I can use that term. We're there, they know we're there but they kind of just want us to go away,” said Marchione. “Just like they did when we came home,” added King.
“To see us come home and then to see what happened at the end and the way it just fell apart – that was disheartening,” said King.
"If we would have known then what we know now, would it have made a difference for us? No,” said Marchione.
They are more than friends from the foxhole. They are brothers. If their country called on them to serve again, they would.
"I live in the United States of America. It's where I come from and where I grew up and I wouldn't want any other nation to take it and if they need me, I'm here,” said King.
►Contact reporter Lisa Hutson at lhutson@whas11.com. Follow her on Twitter (@WHAS11Lisa) and Facebook.