My name is Paul McAfee, and I am a Vietnam Veteran.
I served in Vietnam between January 1969 to January 1970 in Pleiku – Gia Lai Province with the 18th Eng. Brig., 815th Eng. Battalion, HHC.
My father was an officer in the Navy, but did not serve in combat. I enlisted to “avoid the draft”. I was in college and failed, with a 1.2 average, which made me eligible for the draft. So, I enlisted to avoid the draft with the draft notice arriving only a week later. After the Army, I returned to the same college and graduated with honors, Phi Beta Kappa, and a 2.55 average.
My special training was as a Radio Teletype Operator 05C40, a photographer 85B40 and a Communications Chief 31G40. We were located along the remote perimeter of South of Pleiku and the Ho Chi Minh Trail while in Company D. These photos show my photographer and communications work in progress. The more recent photo is with me and a Viet Cong Veteran of the Vietnam War, taken in 2012.
I continue to serve but in a different way by teaching in Vietnam since 2012 for Keuka College, a small private college in Upstate New York. The group photograph, also taken in 2012 is of the leadership students in Hanoi supporting a local orphanage. Since the college’s founding in 1890 as a spiritually centered college of liberal arts and practical learning, Keuka College has graduated generations of humanists and scientists, contributive citizens and caring leaders: women and men energetically engaged in the art of leading productive and fulfilling lives.
I will be spending the next 2 months at the Hoa Binh Centre in Hanoi and the Vietnam National University.
“You have to know the past to understand the present.”
Dr. Carl Sagan
~Paul MacAfee, Vietnam Veteran and teacher
We are very grateful to Paul for educating our youth of today and for sharing these photos and his story with Comes A Soldier’s Whisper, where we are all connected.
God Bless all who serve and keep us safe.
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