Thus far, 2021 hasn’t been a very kind year as we’ve lost three very close and dear friends, Vince Acosta, Adrian Tworek and Larry Harris.

	The first of the three to pass on, was Vince Acosta who served with the 70th in A Company in 1969. Roger and I had kept in close contact with Vince and Gail over the years and when traveling through Las Vegas to one place or another, we always included time in our schedule to spend time with Vince and Gail. A home health worker brought COVID19 into their home and while Gail, a cancer survivor, overcame the virus, Vince, who had a number of health issues, wasn’t strong enough to overcome it.  Vince passed away on January 10, 2021.
	If you’ve been to one of the Battalion reunions, you like met Adrian and got to share a number of stories.  After being locked up for a little over a year avoiding COVID, we’d finally headed out in our coach to attend a rally and while there, got a call from his wife Jane letting us know that he’d been out working in the yard when he’d rung the doorbell and she found him sitting on the porch.  He’d suffered an aneurism and while he survived the surgery to repair the damage, he passed away the next day on Friday, May 21, 2021.  Adrian served in HQ company 1966-67.
	This morning, we learned that Larry Harris, who served with the 70th in HQ Company from 1966-68 before moving on to 1st CAV in Vietnam, passed away on May 2, 2021. In all, Larry received 5 purple hearts throughout his multiple tours in Vietnam. He’d pretty much dropped off the face of the earth a while back and try as we did to keep in touch we’d been unable to reach him. Roger finally made contact with one of his local friends this morning and learned of his passing. He had been suffering from heart-related issues for some time.

May they all now rest in peace.  In the interim, ’til we meet again on the other side … we will sorely miss their presence.