LEXINGTON, Ky. (LEX 18) — Brian Engle and his wife took their familiar spot inside Lexington Cemetery on Memorial Day, attending the annual service to honor fallen heroes Monday.
"It's a wonderful, honorable ceremony that's very nicely done," Engle said.
Engle served as a Senior Master Sergeant in the Air Force during the Vietnam War, completing multiple tours of duty — not because he was drafted, but by choice. He said he felt guilt attending school while others were fighting on the battlefield, so he enlisted.
He began with a ground assignment as a technical specialist. After 15 months in that role — during which he was shot at constantly — he retrained and became an Aerial Gunner flying B-52s.
During his first year in Vietnam, Engle was wounded. When he returned from recovering at the hospital, he learned that a high school friend who had been serving in the same area was killed around the same time Engle was wounded.
"That was about the saddest thing. I think about his every Memorial Day, and just about every other day too," Engle said.
Engle knows he is standing at the ceremony today, rather than being among those honored posthumously, because of fortune.
"Absolutely. The local Guerrillas, the Vietcong weren't good shots, but they could get lucky at times, and they could get lucky with you. Luck of the draw," he said.
