This week’s veteran of the week is Mario Vernali, who joined the U.S.
Army in June 1968 and stayed on active duty until June of 1970. Somewhat
estranged from older parents, and with no particular interests or
obligations, Mario was searching for what would come next for him in his
life. On going at the same time was the Vietnam war and Mario possibly
being impacted by the looming draft. Watching the situation unfold, Mario
decided he would rather have control over his own destiny and so he
volunteered. Because his parents sort of dictated his past decisions, this was one of his own choices and was his first major personal decision for which he was duly proud. Mario went to Army basic training and AIT at
Fort Lewis, Washington and graduated as an 11Bravo – basic combat
infantryman. He had 30 days to get ready to deploy. In the interim, he met and became friends with an older gentleman who was a veteran of the
101st Airborne. He talked of jumping out of planes etc, which did not really excite Mario. He also spoke of how he could get Mario into the 101st upon his deployment to Vietnam. Mario was not so enamored with the idea of the 101st and decided to see where he would end up upon arriving in Vietnam, at Long Binh. What happens – he is assigned to the 101st – whether with that gentleman’s influence or not he never did determine. He was initially assigned to C Co, 1/501st. Those orders were changed at the last minute, and he was reassigned to E Co Recon for the remainder of his tour.
In 1969 he was involved in an action second only to Hamburger Hill, which
was not publicised due to the large amount of negative publicity garnered
by Hamburger Hill. He was wounded seriously and spent 9 days in the ICU
in Chu Lai. While there a 122mm rocket landed several huts down, which
killed several nurses from the Division. He was then medevaced to Yokota
AFB, then on Travis AFB and Letterman Hospital. While in the hospital in
San Francisco he looked out his window and passing by was an aircraft
carrier coming into port with all of its sailors standing out on the deck – a sight that still gives him goose bumps today. After recovering from his wounds, he was assigned as an M16 target detection instructor at Monterrey, CA. He spent 6 months in that position. As his ETS date
approached, he got involved in a mail program advertising airline support
training.
Upon leaving the service he attended resident training for that in Kansas
City. He eventually took a job with Delta Airlines in Chicago as a ground
support person. He continued in that job for 7 years with always in mind of trying to transfer back home to California and San Francisco. He was able to do that from May 71-77. As time continued he found that this job was not fun anymore and being junior in the system he always drew the less than favorable jobs which impacted negatively on trying to raise a family.
Leaving that job he worked as an auto mechanic, sold cars and spray
painted. He also worked with two managed care homes and loved working
there and listening to the stories of the residents. He also became involved in landscape design. He worked eventually in the landscape design section at the headquarters of Hewlett Packard in California. Always lucky in finding a new opportunity, he landed a job from which he retired with the City of Santa Cruz in their public works department.
As time progressed Mario felt a change in the political climate in California.
Also at the same time California was experiencing numerous fires, from
which ash and dust from the flames would last up to 30 days. At the same
time one of his daughters moved to Montgomery County, Texas. Mario and
his wife followed. Mario and his wife have two daughters, one in California and one in Texas along with 3 grandchildren here in Texas. If one thing is common in Mario’s life is that he has worked and changed jobs on his own terms and has had a varied work life. He has a life long love of open car racing (formula type) and was exposed to a friend who owned a P 51 plane he loved riding in. He is now involved with volunteering via the Wednesday morning breakfast group. Congratulations on being MCN’s Veteran of the Week.
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Publisher: Veteran of the Week