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Editor's note: The sharing of any non-VA information does not constitute an endorsement of products and services on the part of VA. Veterans should verify the information with the organization offering.

The following is an account from former lieutenant colonel and Marine Corps Veteran James Volkmar who, with the help of Togetherweserved.com, reconnected with his radio operator 44 years after they were both medevaced from the battlefield in Vietnam. To find and reconnect with your own service buddies, visit the TWS Buddy Finder.

I was leading my company, Hotel 2/26, in March 1969, along the river at Ga Noi Island when we were attacked by NVA in a battle that raged for several hours. We had Spooky (Douglas AC-47D,) often referred to as "Puff the Magic Dragon," sending down from the sky a wall of solid red tracers blowing the hell out of banana trees. As Spooky finished firing in front of my platoon's perimeter, Lt. Tom Turner came up on the net requesting that he do the same for his platoon's perimeter. I remember when the first round in front of Tom's position hit, I said to my radio operator, Cpl. Arthur Phillips, "that was close." Just then, Turner came up in highly emotional tones shouting, "Check fire! Check fire!" Seems Spooky had shot right down the line of Tom's platoon, but the "Gods of War" were watching out for those Marines as there was only one Marine with what amounted to a flesh wound.

A moment later, my radio operator and I were suddenly felled by some explosive device that picked me up and launched me nearly 10 feet in the air. I like to think back that I was able to shield my radio operator with my body as I bore the brunt of damage from the shrapnel. In any case, the left side of my body got a healthy peppering of shrapnel and my face might have escaped, but when the blast went off I turned to see what it was. My nose was almost sliced in two.

I struggled up and limped back to my radio operator, who was standing rather rigidly upright clutching his neck with blood streaming between his fingers. I laid him down before the corpsman arrived and took over the triage before a medevac chopper came to take us out. This was the last time we saw each other. I spent nine months in various military hospitals and was then reassigned to the U.S.S. Hornet in Long Beach, California.

I joined Together We Served in January 2006 and quickly found two Marines who were in the same boot camp platoon as me. Together We Served has a feature to record my service memories in a self-interview they call Service Reflections, and my service story was published in their monthly Reflections Newsletter in February 2013. It was just by sheer coincidence that a certain Arthur Phillips had just joined Together We Served and received a copy of this newsletter. He saw my name and my mention of my radio operator injured in the Ga Noi incident, and realized I was referring to him. He reached out to me by phone and I immediately recognized his voice. We had a great conversation and made a promise to meet as soon as we could.

It turned out ABC News had become aware of our story and arranged for us to travel and meet each other in Washington D.C., which they filmed for a news segment. It was a very special day for both of us and one we will never forget.