Alan L. EDELSTEIN
| Residing In: | Jerusalem, Israel Israel |
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| Spouse/Partner: | Dana |
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| Homepage: |
www.edelsteinrandomthoughts.com |
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| Occupation: | Business Development/Communications/Advocacy |
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| Children: | 3 adult children and one daughter-in-law. First granddaughter, Shoshana, born April 21, 2014 |
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Alan L.'s Latest Interactions
Happy Birthday, Minoru.
Posted on: Oct 29, 2014 at 8:33 AM
I want to thank the classmates who have taken the time to remember Hugo and to publish the detailed account of his death as a hero. I remember him although we were not close. If I knew that he had died in Vietnam, I had forgotten about it.
My wife and I are in the final days of planning a month-long trip to Vietnam, Cambodia, and Laos. We leave this upcoming Saturday, Nov. 1st. As I have been doing the research for the trip, the Vietnam Era with its horrors and controversy, things that I have not thought about in detail for years, have been coming back up. It was a matter of "luck" that a new comment was just posted and that it caught my attention.
I have to admit that, as a young person, I was fairly clueless as to what our service personnel were going through, the sacrifices they made and the horrible things many experienced. Now, having a nephew who is a career officer in the U.S. Navy, and living a good part of the year in Israel, where, unfortunately, war is never that far away and our young people are constantly encountering the challenges of military service, I have a much better and more mature appreciation of what Hugo and all of our Vietnam veterans experienced.
Our upcoming trip was looking to be a lot of fun, interesting, informative, and meaningful. Reading the account of Hugo's last mission, as well as the remembrances of him by some classmates, have really added to the meaning of the trip and to the experience I will have. I want to thank those classmates who took the time to post comments and I want to say that I will think of Hugo and his sacrifice on this trip. When remembering a deceased person, we Jews say out of respect "May his memory be for a blessing." May Hugo Gayton's memory, and the memory of all our deceased veterans, be for a blessing.
