You can always tell a Marine...

Rico says his friend Tex sends this:

19 April 1969 (43 years ago) a young twenty-year-old had just completed BIT Training (Battalion Infantry Training) and Vietnam Combat training school at the same place, Camp Pendleton.
This is one of a very few photographs I have from that time in my life; that's me on the right and my other Texas buddy on the left; he and I went to Recon School together, and were on the same flight from Dallas to San Diego and MCRD, taking a break before heading to our flight bound for Hawaii, Midway, Guam, Okinawa, and then the Nam. 

19 April 1969, seems just like yesterday. We arrived in Vietnam on Easter Sunday, 21 April...