My Nineteenth Birthday

My Nineteenth Birthday

These were my buddies and I took this photo as we celebrated my nineteenth birthday. I wasn’t the only one to spend his nineteenth birthday in Vietnam: the average age for all infantrymen in Vietnam was nineteen. At the time, I gave little thought to the difference between this birthday party and the one I had the year before. For that party, I celebrated with cake, ice cream and fruit punch. For this party, we celebrated with beer, whiskey, cigarettes and marijuana.