Tag Archives: Florida Voices

Tony Magnifico is a U.S. Marine veteran of Vietnam, boxing trainer, retired construction worker and husband to a Vietnamese woman he met on a return trip to the country.

A UF student recounts what it was like growing up in Vietnam after the war. Read his story at WUFT.org.

His plane once erupted up into a ball of fire as it hit the runway following a bombing run into North Vietnam — forcing him and another serviceman to eject — but that didn’t stop John Menoski from returning to combat missions the following week. He also once flew 40 missions …

While much of the United States population had by 1971 turned against the war in Vietnam, as well as many of those who fought it, John Lavelle experienced a touching piece of support from his daughter’s fifth-grade class. They collected food and other necessities to support orphanages in the Asian …

Having had the opportunity to see a screening of a part of Ken Burns’ film on the Vietnam War earlier this year, Fred Judkins had this warning for any veteran of that war with post-traumatic stress disorder: “Be very careful, because it’s very, very intense.” Judkins served in an Army …

David Willkomm served toward the end of the American ground-based conflict in Vietnam, and by then, he witnessed a sad breakdown of G.I. morale within his unit. Drug use, racial tension, and alcoholism were all too common, according to Willkomm, who later became a counselor at the Gainesville Veterans Affairs …