Our deepest sympathies and condolences from Charlie Company to the family of Bud and Cecelia Roach upon the loss of their son, Kevin.  Kevin attended our reunions with his family and his loss saddens those of Charlie Company that knew him.

A memorial service for Kevin will be held at 2:00pm Saturday August 10, 2013 at the First Baptist Church 202 West Walnut Street, Whitewright, Texas, 75491.

Operations Gratitude is a friend of Charlie Company.  Operation Gratitude is a blog that supports our troops.  They annually send at least 100,000 care packages filled with snacks, entertainment items and personal letters of appreciation addressed to individually named U.S. Service Members deployed in hostile regions, to their children left behind and to wounded warriors recovering in military hospitals or transition units.  Their mission is to lift morale, bring a smile to a service member’s face and express to our Armed Forces the appreciation and support of the American people. Each package contains donated product valued at ~$125 and costs the organization $15 to assemble and ship.

We all know how important it was to receive packages from home while we were in Vietnam.

Since the majority of the Charlie Company readers also support our troops and many of our readers do crafts I wanted to share one of the great posts worth seeing from Operation Gratitude:

CLICK HERE

Story and photo provided by The Polk County Pulse Newspaper

RAYMOND WARNER (kneeling bottom right), a local Vietnam Veteran, recently attended his 4th Infantry Reunion in Tulsa. He personally delivered “Thank You Soldier” notes that had been made by the children of The Crossing Church to the combat veterans. Many, still having memories of being spat upon when they returned from the war, were deeply moved by the children’s efforts acknowledging their service to their country.  Most attending were Purple Heart Recipients.

“Greater love has no one than this, that one lay down his life for his friends.” – John 15:13

The Eisenhower interstate system requires that one mile in every five must be straight. These straight sections are usable as airstrips in times of war or other emergencies.

Economy

Vietnam is a densely-populated developing country that in the last 30 years has had to recover from the ravages of war, the loss of financial support from the old Soviet Bloc, and the rigidities of a centrally-planned economy.

Economic stagnation marked the period after reunification from 1975 to 1985. In 1986, the Sixth Party Congress approved a broad economic reform package that introduced market reforms and set the groundwork for Vietnam’s improved investment climate. Substantial progress was achieved from 1986 to 1997 in moving forward from an extremely low level of development and significantly reducing poverty.

The 1997 Asian financial crisis highlighted the problems in the Vietnamese economy and temporarily allowed opponents of reform to slow progress toward a market-oriented economy. GDP growth averaged 6.8% per year from 1997 to 2004 even against the background of the Asian financial crisis and a global recession.

Since 2001, Vietnamese authorities have reaffirmed their commitment to economic liberalization and international integration. They have moved to implement the structural reforms needed to modernize the economy and to produce more competitive, export-driven industries. The economy grew 8.5% in 2007. Vietnam’s membership in the ASEAN Free Trade Area (AFTA) and entry into force of the US-Vietnam Bilateral Trade Agreement in December 2001 have led to even more rapid changes in Vietnam’s trade and economic regime. Vietnam’s exports to the US increased 900% from 2001 to 2007.

Vietnam joined the WTO in January 2007, following over a decade long negotiation process. WTO membership has provided Vietnam an anchor to the global market and reinforced the domestic economic reform process. Among other benefits, accession allows Vietnam to take advantage of the phase-out of the Agreement on Textiles and Clothing, which eliminated quotas on textiles and clothing for WTO partners on 1 January 2005. Agriculture’s share of economic output has continued to shrink, from about 25% in 2000 to less than 20% in 2007.

Deep poverty, defined as a percent of the population living under $1 per day, has declined significantly and is now smaller than that of China, India, and the Philippines. Vietnam is working to create jobs to meet the challenge of a labor force that is growing by more than one-and-a-half million people every year. In an effort to stem high inflation which took off in 2007, early in 2008 Vietnamese authorities began to raise benchmark interest rates and reserve requirements. Hanoi is targeting an economic growth rate of 7.5-8% during the next four years.

Government

Population of Vietnam