Byron Moore had been with his wife for years when his father-in-law Harold Wilson pulled out some photos one Thanksgiving of him and his fellow Marines from their time in Vietnam during the war. Up until then, the Marion, North Carolina, man didn’t even know Wilson had served. “I was dating my wife for probably seven years, and I never knew my father-in-law was in the Marine Corps in Vietnam,” Moore says.
It was then that the self-described military history buff hatched a plan to find all of Wilson’s brothers-in-arms. That spark has turned into an annual Charlie Company reunion in Marion hosted by Moore for those Vietnam-era Marine Corps veterans. “It’s blossomed into some madness,” Moore says enthusiastically, “We've got 300 guys on the email list.”
The most recent gathering, which took place this past weekend, attracted hundreds of veterans from the 1960s, with attendees coming in from as far as Washington State, California, and even Canada. More says the highlight of any of these events is getting to see veterans who haven’t seen each other for nearly a half a century pick up right where they left off. And Wilson hopes the reunions will continue for years to come.