VIETNAM: RONALD FORSYTHE

Ronald Forsythe remembers flying by radar over the jungles of Vietnam, dipping below the clouds for touch-and-gos at Khe Sanh and countless tiny villages with names that he never even learned.

The crew of the Forsythe's C-124 resupplied Green Berets, military bases and South Vietnamese allies all over the countryside — and they took a round every now and then for their efforts. "Taking off and landing is when they would get you," Forsythe recalled. "Our goal was to get up to 5,000 feet. That's where you were safe from most ground fire."

It was a new kind of war, and no one knew that better than Forsythe.

He joined the Army in 1950, serving as a staff sergeant in the Korean War. It was there that he learned how to load airplanes. He was discharged in '54, but Forsythe was not ready to quit serving. His family talked him into trying another branch of service. Because of all his work on planes, he chose the Air Force.

He became a master sergeant, a loadmaster on C-124s who built up more than 10,000 hours in the air. When Vietnam began, he immediately realized that everything had changed.

"It used to be two opposing sides lined up and fought it out," Forsythe recalled. "It's not going to be that way any more."

The current wars, he said, are much more like Vietnam: unconventional, unpredictable and politically divisive. But one thing has changed, and Veterans Day is symbolic of that. Forsythe remembers coming home from Vietnam and being told to get out of his uniform so people wouldn't know he had fought in the war.

Today, every veteran is treated like a returning hero.

"What I'm really proud of is how they treat our vets these days," Forsythe says. "I'm glad they are getting recognition."