GEORGETOWN, Texas — Georgetown resident Steve Valdez still remembers Thanksgiving Day 1967.

Valdez was a mortarman on Hill 875 in Dak To, Vietnam during the height of the U.S. war against North Vietnam. That hill was the site of some of the fiercest and bloodiest battles between U.S. and North Vietnamese forces.

During a lull in the fighting, as an Army helicopter pilot delivered turkey dinners for the men, Valdez says it was a Thanksgiving barely worth celebrating.

“I think the hardest part was, I had loaded three body bags with soldiers in them that day,“ Valdez recalled. “So, when they brought the food in, you were sitting there, and everybody said nothing ... because there was nothing to really say. It’s just the sorrow that you’re feeling and the sympathy for the guys that are in t

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