By Meredith Canales
Contributing Writer

It was late October in downtown San Antonio, and the first cold front of the season had just set in. The men in the lobby of El Tropicano Hotel, however, were surrounded by a warm glow: the glow of friendship, of a renewed camaraderie, a brotherhood that was forged in the battles of a bloody war long ago.

The Vietnam veterans sat around a table, nine of them, trading pictures from the war, old photographs that had a brown cloud of time caked over them. Some of the men appeared as younger versions of themselves in the photographs; others in the photos died shortly after they were taken.

As horrible as some of the memories are, they are the memories that bound these men together so many years ago.

Every year they gather, flying from California, New York, Georgia, Wisconsin and other hometowns scattered across the nation, reminiscing on times gone by and catching up on the past year’s activities — new grandbabies, children’s weddings, important anniversaries … and the passing of colleagues.

An Honor Guard chaplain reads from the Bible during a ceremony at the grave site of Peter Olivo in Eagle Pass. Olivo’s Charlie Company brothers stand to the right of the grave. Photos by Steve Davidson

This year, they came for a reason.

One of their fallen brothers, 21-year-old Cpl. Peter Olivo from Eagle Pass, Texas, was killed in a battle that took several of the men of Charlie Company, 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry, Airmobile. According to Olivo’s nephew, Steve Davidson, his grandmother (Olivo’s mother) destroyed the flag that was given to her in honor of her son’s service in the U.S. Army.

A documentary filmmaker who has 15 years of experience in creative writing, copywriting, branding and independent film projects, Davidson decided to invite the men who served with his uncle to meet with his three aunts and his mother, to discuss the events of May 9, 1968 — the day Olivo was killed.

“The idea came about after I had a conversation with my aunt, Doris Finley, asking where my uncle Peter’s flag and medals were located, items I knew he earned while serving in Vietnam,” Davidson recalled. “I learned from Doris, the historian of the family, that only a few items were left. According to what I learned from her, Peter’s American flag had been destroyed by her mother, my grandmother, some years after the death of her son.”

Davidson produces his films out of his home on Redland Ranch Road in the Northeast section of San Antonio, and his dedication to his project, produced by his company, Little Bear Productions, stemmed from how deeply the military is embedded in his family.

“As the son of a veteran who served four tours in Vietnam, a veteran myself and the father of a son currently serving in the Armed Forces, I felt compelled to do whatever was necessary to return to the Olivo family another American flag,” he explained. “While I agree with my grandmother that a flag cannot replace a life lost, it can, however, serve to properly honor a son’s ultimate sacrifice for his country, a sacrifice that should never be seen as anything less than the greatest of sacrifices.”

Having served for the Army in both Desert Shield and Desert Storm and having been stationed at King Khalid Military City in Al Batin, Saudi Arabia, Davidson said the news of his grandmother, who died in 2000, destroying the flag did not sit well with him.

“It was not the fact that my grandmother, in some form or another, destroyed the flag, rather that up to 2005, no one in the family had bothered to retrieve another flag,” he said, “or for that matter, search out men who served with my uncle, men who might shed some light on who Peter was as a man and soldier, light that might give the family a desire to see another American flag replace the one destroyed by their mother.

“It was at this point I began my quest to find the men of Charlie 1/5,” he added.

And find them he did, through a Web site begun and operated by a daughter of one of the veterans of Charlie Company.

“Since my locating her, I have been in phone contact, e-mail contact and have met with theses men at a reunion held recently in Washington, D.C. Added to this, it has been my pleasure to travel to their homes for personal meetings,” he said.

This time, the men traveled to Davidson, meeting in San Antonio and preparing for a two-hour trek to Eagle Pass — the home of the Olivo family, where they would meet with Olivo’s sisters and present them with a flag to replace the one their mother had des-troyed almost 40 years ago.

Assisted by his film crew, Davidson set up shop at El Tropicano Hotel downtown, where the men stayed. He conducted interviews with each of them, urging them to speak of their time in Vietnam and their association with Peter Olivo.

Journey to the past

Lt. Frank Romiti stands in front of a tank during a tour of duty in Vietnam as a member of Charlie Company 1st Battalion, 5th Cavalry. Courtesy Photo

Upon arrival at the Hampton Inn in Eagle Pass, the men unloaded from the van, slowly, as some of them still had injuries.

Terry, a Southern gentleman from Georgia, was the worst injured. The day Olivo was killed, Terry was shot three times on the left side of his body. Today, he still uses a walker, though after five minutes with him, it goes unnoticed. He is a regal man with sparkling blue eyes. His bearing belies his condition.

Congregating around the pool, waiting for Olivo’s sisters to gather in the conference room, the men surrounded Terry, sitting in a simple poolside chair with such an air of dignity that it might have been a throne.

Describing his men, Terry explained that there wasn’t a bad one in the bunch.

“They’re all the greatest guys,” he said in his slow Southern drawl, staring at the circle of men around him. “Those who died, it just breaks our hearts. This is a bunch of real men. But I have seen tears come down the majority of their faces. We didn’t do that 40 years ago; we do it now.”

Forty years ago, they were all different men, certainly younger men. Terry was the third oldest in the company, at just 28 years old. As they sat outside, he asked each one of them how old they were serving in Vietnam. Down the row they went: “22, 23, 18, 19 …”

Though 40 years have passed, the men’s memories are not diminished by the passing of time.