VIRGINIA BEACH
By the time Bob Tipton attended his first reunion with fellow Vietnam War veterans, he'd forgotten dates, names and faces - but not the brotherhood they shared.
As members of Task Force 116, the Navy's river patrol force, Tipton and the other men counted on one another to stay alive.
"We had a code, and you did not break it," he said.
Decades later, Tipton and other former brown-water sailors said they feel just as close to one another now as they did during the war. They gathered Saturday at Little Creek Naval Amphibious Base to remember those among them who didn't make it home and those who have died since.
The memorial service was part of a five-day national reunion hosted by the mid-Atlantic chapter of the Gamewardens of Vietnam Association, a fraternal organization. At least 200 of the so-called "river rats" and other visitors attended the roughly 30-minute ceremony.
The veterans raised their right hands to their foreheads in salute while they sang the national anthem. They bowed their heads as a bell tolled and the names of the Vietnam sailors who died in the last two years were read.
Afterward, people milled around a former patrol boat on display and an obelisk with the names of the fallen etched in the granite.
Julie Hawk, her sister and two aunts traveled from Ohio to be among the men. Her father was part of the river patrol force. Much of what she knows about him she learned from letters, slides and military memorabilia.
Hawk was 4-1/2 when Cornelius Anthony McCafferty - "Mac" or "Pep" to friends and family - was killed while serving in Vietnam. He died among members of the Iron Butterfly, a river division that spent time patrolling waters north of the Mekong Delta.
About two dozen men from that division attended the week's activities, and they made Hawk feel welcome, she said. "It's like a family reunion," minus the bickering.
Tipton came from Florida for the reunion, his fourth in eight years. His buddies know him as a clown, a troublemaker or simply "Crazy Bob." But there were years when that spirit dimmed.
Returning to the United States after serving in Vietnam was difficult for Tipton. Back in California, he had no family, no friends, no one who understood the adrenaline rush that came when gunfire rained on his patrol boat. Tipton said he jumped from job to job, used drugs and considered suicide, then he eventually settled down.
Wearing aviator sunglasses and a black beret adorned with military pins, Tipton shared sea stories and laughed with friends Saturday. He and other members of the Iron Butterfly climbed aboard the display boat and posed for photographs.
Being with the other sailors is like coming home, Tipton said.
"From the moment we lay eyes on each other," he said, "we go back in time."
Hattie Brown Garrow, (757) 222-5562, hattie.brown@pilotonline.com
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