Wayne Medeiros Photos
SP-5, Dolphin Crew Chief, 1965-66

The following photos were sent in by Wayne Medeiros.
Wayne provided captions for the photos, and those captions are below
each photo when you click on the thumbnail to view the full-sized photo.

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Wayne was one of the original "boat people," meaning he was with the 174th at Ft. Benning and deployed with the unit to Vietnam. After serving his tour and leaving the 174th in early 1967, his intentions were to attend flight school to be a helicopter pilot, but he failed the flight physical (color blind). So, he got out of the Army in July 1968 and was hired as a fire fighter with the Honolulu Fire Department in August 1973.

Wayne was a member of the American Legion Post 12 in Hawaii. In March 1981, he was chosen to represent Hawaii as a Vietnam veteran for a presentation of the American Legion Distinguished Service Medal to the Dead and Missing of the Vietnam war at the Tomb of the Unknowns at Arlington National Cemetery in Washington, DC.

During his years with the Fire Department, he put in 17 years with the Hawaii Air National Guard. With that and the three years active duty with the Army, he retired with 20 years of military service in October 1994. After 19 years in fire suppression, he was promoted to Fire Inspector, and retired in October 2002 after 29 years with the Honolulu Fire Department.

In his note to me (webmaster) when he sent me the photos, Wayne shared the following story (that you original "boat people just might appreciate). Wayne said:

I look at the web site (often) to view the latest, and now I hope someone remembers me and gets in touch with me. Oh yeah, I just want to let you know what really happened on our stop at Peal Harbor (Correction to Bernie Cobb's story). The person he was talking about was me, and there was no marriage. This was only said so they would not get that pissed off with me. A cousin of mine worked with the Pearl Harbor Police and knew some people at Pearl. Knowing we were running late in returning back to the ship he called and they somehow delayed the ship till I got there. I do remember the gang plank being pulled away as soon I was aboard. A day I will never forget, and I still laugh about it all the time!

Click on each thumbnail below to see the full-sized photo and the caption.