Richard Moyer remembers getting off the plane in Vietnam in 1968. He was 21, a draftee in the U.S. Army, joining up for a dangerous deployment with F Company long-range patrol.
Over the next two years, he would be awarded three Bronze Stars and four Purple Hearts. Forty-four years later — on April 1, 2012 — Moyer returned to Vietnam for the first time. His new mission involved building houses with Vietnamese families in need of decent shelter, as part of Habitat’s Vietnam Veterans Build. “Even at my age, there’s always learning, always new experiences,” says Moyer, 65, a transit supervisor in Las Vegas who’s been volunteering for Habitat for eight years.
Ken Bensen, a longtime Habitat staffer and volunteer in Lansing, Michigan, organized the U.S. team, which built in partnership with locally based Habitat staff, volunteers and partner families in Tien Giang.
