There was a kid from around here, a couple of years younger than myself, one of those nameless underclassmen you'd see in high school who made no impression on you at all -- a real nobody. I heard that he had joined the army a couple of years after I went into the service, and on his second tour in Vietnam as a helicopter pilot was shot down and killed over Cambodia. Years later I learned that he had been an outstanding army aviator, highly decorated and absolutely fearless. The last guy you'd expect to turn out to be a hero. In a real twist of irony to this story, I learned that he was my little brother's instructor when my brother was going through army flight school at Fort Wolters.
His body was recovered, and he was buried in a remote country cemetery a few miles from where I now live. I went out to see his grave. The cemetery has no caretaker and his grave was covered with weeds, so I pulled up the weeds, then went back out with a load of grass seed and Miracle-Gro and got a nice covering of grass growing over his grave. It just killed me to see a hero's grave so lonely and neglected. I still go out there once a year to spruce things up, and snap him a salute.