As a young man at the age of 20, Butch Kruger was with the 101st Airborne Division 506 A, United States Army, stationed in Vietnam in the A Shau Valley region. He was there from June of 1969 to June of 1970. “Since returning home, I’ve always wanted to return to Vietnam and see what it looks like today, The children were so poor and had literally nothing. I wanted to know if that was better today,” Kruger shared when asked why he had wanted to make a return visit to Vietnam.
Kruger, along with his wife, Barb, and friends and traveling companions, Dave and Cheryl Thiner, took a trip to make that return visit February 8 through February 20th. “We have been on other trips together to Alaska, and Washington, DC, and a few other places. We were thinking about where we wanted to go this time and Butch said, ‘Let’s go to Vietnam.’ Barb placed a call on Saturday evening and by Sunday morning she had received a call back and the trip to Vietnam was being planned,” Dave stated.
The two couples traveled to Minneapolis and took a flight from there on February 8th to San Francisco (a 3 ½ hour flight). From San Francisco, they flew to Hong Kong (an 11 ½ hour flight). Friday, February 9th, they were back in the air, flying to Saigon (now known as Ho Chi Minh City) which was another 3-hour flight. “Our guide arrived and told us we were scheduled for a tour of the Cu Chi Tunnels. We hadn’t had any sleep, and it was time to rest,” Cheryl Thiner explained. “We got a few hours of sleep and then went on our tour.”
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