Vietnam memories still haunt Donora veteran
By eric seiverling
eseiverling@yourmvi.com
For Donora resident and U.S. Army veteran Lou Behanna, enlisting in the Army Reserves in 1965 was a compromise between being drafted and being sent overseas, or staying home while still serving his country.
“If you got drafted, you were at the government’s mercy,” said Behanna, who graduated from Donora High School in 1963. “That was a little bit scary because you don’t get to determine your own fate. If you joined the reserves, you were cutting down the odds because the only way you would go overseas is if your particular unit got activated. As luck would have it, we got activated.”
Behanna’s unit, the 630th Transportation Company based out of Washington, Pa., was activated in 1968, and it started a whirlwind adventure for Behanna that has stayed with him his entire life.
Upon activation, Behanna and his company were sent to Fort Knox in Kentucky for basic training. In September 1968, Behanna began the long and arduous journey to Da Nang, Vietnam, for a year-long deployment that would see him drive tractor-trailer convoys that hauled supplies to American troops ranging from food to ammunition inside some of Vietnam’s most active war zones.
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