Things changed in the 40-plus years since they hunkered down together in foxholes thousands of miles away from home.

The hair a little thinner, a little grey. Waistlines a little thicker on some; for others, that easy stride has a hitch in it they didn’t have back in 1972, when they arrived stateside from the war and said goodbye.

The voices, though, never change.

“You memorize certain things,” says Larry Tallacus, a Vietnam veteran and Sequim resident. “Voice is one of them.”

In his home mingle men he served with in the US Army, but few of them had seen each other in four decades.

Still, the voices are their calling cards.

“I could walk through a room blindfolded and know who is who,” says Clinton Vogel.

For more than 40 years, the men of this group — a US Army 81mm mortar crew of B Company, 2nd Battalion, 1st Infantry of the 196th Light Infantry Brigade, and the last combat brigade to leave in Vietnam — have gotten busy with life, and so they had simply lost touch as the years passed.

Jim Gales, gunner for the mortar group, offered up some thoughts for a magazine article published in the August 2012 edition of VFW Magazine. One of the few who traded Christmas cards to keep tabs on his fellow veterans, Gales set in motion a reunion that brought their crew together — to Sequim — last weekend.

“The day we left country was the last time I saw most of these guys,” says Chuck Hartman of Port Angeles. “You form a bond when you’re in some of these situations.”

The veterans share stories and knowing grins over a warm meal on a warm Sequim summer day while Tallacus hands them meaningful mementos, such as buttons with “Brothers Forever” inscribed.

“I can’t tell you how much I love these guys,” Tallacus says.

Different paths

In a photo printed in the VFW Magazine, six young men stare back at the camera, some grinning, others slouching.

Their leader, second from left in the frame, was Larry Corpuz, who since changed his last name to Tallacus to reflect something close to how his native Makah name is pronounced.

Tallacus grew up in the Salinas Valley. His family saw four brothers serve in Vietnam, three serving at the same time. He stayed in the army for 20-plus years, then DHS in Portland, Ore., for some time before retiring on Jan. 15.

Tallacus was working in Portland, Ore., at Oregon Department of Human Services when he saw the picture in the VFW Magazine.

“Everything came back to me: the sweat, the smell, the heat,” Tallacus says.

Soon, phone calls and addresses were passed back and forth. “I hear a voice I hand’t heard since 1972,” says Vogel.

Time and the ravages of war had taken their toll on the crew, they say: as of early this year, out of 25 original crew members, just nine of the company were living. Three of their crew had died in the past 18 months, they say, and all from Agent Orange, the chemical U.S. military forces used as part of its herbicidal warfare program.

“If we didn’t do this now,” says Vogel, “to meet each other, to hug each other, to tell each other ‘I love you’ … “

By January of this year, a plan was hatched to bring the surviving members — all between ages of 65 and 77 — together under one roof, and Tallacus offered to host.

“We’ll call it whatever you want to,” Vogel recalls. “We’re just glad to see each other.”

They came from different states and backgrounds coming into the war, hailing from Alabama and Tennessee, California and Pittsburgh, and even Sekiu, Washington.

“It’s an eclectic mix of personalities,” Vogel says. “In the … foxhole, there’s no cultural differences.”

Gales agrees.

“Somehow we just gelled,” Gales says.

Vogel grew up in Pittsburg, Chicago and then Memphis, Tenn. Drafted at age 19, he turned 20 in training and 21 in a rice paddy in Vietnam.

After the war, Vogel started a career with the Nashville Police Department, recently retiring after a 36-year career. Despite not hearing from his fellow soldiers for more than four decades, all Vogel needed was a voice.

“I knew Jim’s voice instantly (when he called),” Vogel says.

‘Raw recruits’

“Everybody’s got a story (about Vietnam),” says Gales, a carpet installer from Milwaukee, Wisc., before health problems forced him out of the profession. “We were in the same place, but they will tell you a different story.”

The company can agree, however, that there was little mystery as to who was in charge.

“The whole time we were there, I was basically mommy and daddy,” Tallacus recalls. “‘Beans and bullets.’ All your sergeants are responsible (for that).”

Tallacus served a tour in Vietnam, then re-upped for a second tour.

“You have a sense of something you didn’t complete; that’s why I went back,” he says.

His second tour was with this group.

“I never got too close (to them),” Tallacus says. “When you lose someone, it hurts.”

“Larry took us under his wing from raw recruits,” Gales says. “He made sure we did our job, stayed with us from beginning to end.”(He) always made sure his men were taken care of.”

Gales is one of the few of the group who enlisted.

“I dreamed my whole life of coming home in a uniform,” Gales recalls. “‘Green Berets’ — I saw that. It was for me.”

Hartman grew up in Portland, Ore., before moving the Olympic Peninsula to start the eighth grade in Sekiu. Like Vogel, Hartman turned 21 in Vietnam.

After he returned to the States, Hartman worked for a couple of years, then enrolled at Peninsula College on the GI Bill, studying forestry.

After working for a number years in the logging industry, he formed his own company, Hartman Enterprises, Inc., based in Port Angeles.

“I still like it,” Hartman says. “(And) I spend quite a bit of time at the beach.”

Hartman was one of seven of the nine living crew members made the trek to Sequim.

Helping his fellow vets

Not one to just play host for the reunion, Tallacus has been helping his fellow veterans get awards and medals they didn’t get following the war, Gales says.

Tallacus invited his crew to the 92 annual Makah Days, held in Neah Bay Aug. 26-28, for several of the tribe’s events — incluindg celebrating with Tallacus’ niece Edith Corpuz, Makah Days Queen for 2016.

“That’s huge; we’re embracing it to the hilt,” Gales says.

Says Tallacus, “It’s my way of saying to them, ‘Thank you.’ Because we didn’t get, ‘Thank you.'”

Like many other Vietnam veterans, Tallacus’ crew didn’t get a warm reception when they returned home. US Army officials even urged Vogel and fellow soldiers to change out of their military uniforms, discard them and get into civilian clothes.

“We were looked at with daggers when we walked through a terminal,” Vogel recalls.

“I got on with my life. I served in a different way,” says the ex-detective. “Now … I’m disappointed. I’m pissed off. It is what it is.”

Vogel thinks for a moment, and adds, “It was what it was.”

It didn’t stop there. “I couldn’t get a job once they found out (I was) a combat vet,” Gales says.

However, things may be changing in terms of attitudes toward Vietnam veterans — and the veterans themselves, Vogel says. Guys would make a kind of “bunker” and hide their war keepsakes, he says, as if there were some sort of shame attached.

Now they are starting to put that stuff out for people to see, Vogel says. “Now they’re proud.”

“I promise you, the medals mean nothing,” Vogel says. “(It’s) the camaraderie.”