"Good morning, Vietnam!"

Some of you can probably hear Robin Williams saying those words, and remember the emotions that came along with watching that movie unfold.

Today is Vietnam War Veterans Day, and it just so happens I grew up under the same roof with a man who served in Vietnam.

The man I call my stepdad HATED that I called him that. He once told me I was the reason why he never married my mother, because he didn't want to be my stepdad, since I was a spoiled brat. Thankfully, his son was able to grow through some of his childhood trauma, and he made it easier to get through several of those 14 years. I even had a stepsister who introduced me to Lord of the Rings. Her mother is part of the reason why I knew what polyamory was so early in life, and why I always wanted super short hair; that woman was a BADASS.

I couldn't really get into Patton or The Sands of Iwo Jima, but in between Browns and Indians games, I grew to enjoy watching MASH with my stepdad. I desperately wanted to better understand what his service had been like, since I'd never heard any of my grandfather's war stories, but even after finding my stepdad's rusty coffee can of pins, ropes, dog tags, and possibly medals, I wasn’t told any stories about what the Army had been like for him in Vietnam, after enlisting in Brooklyn as a teenager. (Although he did show me how to use these rope things with hooks that kept his socks in place.) When we visited the traveling wall on its trip to our small town in Ohio, I knew it was significant, because both he and my great grandfather cried, and I'd never seen either of them cry before.

Although most of my memories involve him with cans of Budweiser or Dr. Pepper or shots of Jagermeister in his hand, I'll never forget how we all visited a local Chinese take-out restaurant, where he learned the owner was Vietnamese, and the two of them became such good friends that we began attending parties and karaoke night at his family's house.

I definitely deserved to have better men in my life growing up, but I can’t help but appreciate how he always seemed to light up when we played Pinochle with my great grandfather, how he doted on his grandkids, and how he seemed to have insanely good luck with lottery numbers.