"You depended on the very people who were stealing from you." (Audio Interview, 3:58)

Walter L. Washington

War: Vietnam War, 1961-1975 Branch: Army Unit: 2nd Corps Support Command Service Location: Germany; Thailand; Laos Rank: Lieutenant Colonel Place of Birth: IN

Walter Washington saw many of his boyhood friends serve in the infantry, some of them not coming home from the Vietnam War. But he had chosen an ROTC-oriented college education and went into the officer corps. He was stationed in Germany when he volunteered for duty in Vietnam in the closing days of the American presence there. He had the unenviable task of shutting down or transferring control of facilities to the Vietnamese, accounting for inventory, some of which was being stolen. Even though he thinks the war inflicted deep wounds on the U.S. Army, he still believes in the ideal of serving something bigger than yourself.