Those were heady days for the young men, all aged 19 to 21, who would march for miles during the day, and sleep in holes dug in the ground at night. On the weekend, they'd visits the bars, sometimes the zoo, and even Tijuana.
The reunion took some effort. Falk had to go to six different stores to purchase a striped shirt that resembled the one he wore in 1966, and Puleo didn’t want to drive 2 hours from his home in Orlando.
“The truth of the fact is, I didn’t want to come,” Puleo said. “I could have said ‘no’ 12 times.”
But he came, and at noon they walked up to the beach, borrowed a surf board from a stranger, struck the pose of young men, and took the photo.
“Mission accomplished,” Falk said, walking back from the beach.
Back at the restaurant, they caught up, and each tried to tell their life story in under 3 minutes—and reminisce that they were lucky enough to do so, unlike some of their fellow soldiers.
Some of them had close brushes with death; Puleo had a shrapnel pierce his foot, calf and thigh, and DeVenezia had a bullet go through his left shoulder, but they all survived.
“We all know,” Puleo said, “that we’ve been given a gift of 50 years.”
