A group of four Marines posed 50 years ago for a picture down in Florida.
The men were training for the Vietnam War, and had become close.
Bob Falk, now 71; Dennis Puleo, now 69; Tom Hanks, now 69; and Bob DeVenezia, now 70, returned to the Cinnamon Beach on April 23 to reunite and snap a new photo that’s remarkably similar to the one they took back in 1966.
The men are friends but barely stayed in touch as family and work commitments led to them drifting apart.
“We just broke up,” DeVenezia told Naples News. “Life is funny like that. I didn’t keep in touch with any of them. There was something about the Vietnam War and the negativity we kept hearing.”
It took a lot of planning, but all four made it back to Florida to hang out and eventually take the new image.
“It’s hard to describe, but it was a wonderful, wonderful experience for all four of us. We were just sitting around and BS'ing and talking. It was like nothing had changed even though 50 years had passed,” Hanks told Today.
“The best part of it was going down to the beach and goofing around and pushing each other around. We were like 20-year-old kids.”
They’re all thankful they finally got back together--and that they’ve lived this long, after surviving the brutal war.
“We all know that we’ve been given a gift of 50 years,” Puleo said.
“Look, everybody has reunions. They’re a dime a dozen, but this one? Dennis got last rites in the same battle I got shot in,” DeVenezia added. “The fact that we’re all alive after 50 years, much less survived Vietnam, is what makes the story neat.”
