Page 119 - Senior Link Magazine Fall 2020- Online Magazine

MARINE CORPS
VIETNAM

LUBBOCK

times and had one son from each marriage: Aaron and
Brandon. I drank and partied too much in those early
days out of the service. I woke up one morning in 1979
and knew that I had a problem.

I met my third wife, Kim Rousseau at Southwestern
Bell. When they offered to pay me to retire at 55 years
old, I took them up on it. I had issues with PTSD and
Agent Orange. I finally joined a PTSD group in 2008.
They helped get me straightened out. Kim and I had a
daughter, Ashlee, and we now have ten grandchildren.
We moved to Lubbock in 2014, and I was honored to go
on the 2018 Texas South Plains Honor Flight. On July 1,
2020, Kim and I were married 40 years.” Looking back
on his time in Vietnam, John thoughtfully recalled, “We
were young men. It was kind of an adventure really. We
were just tryin’ to stay alive one more day.”

so long, they
didn’t look too
good. I stayed
there about
a week. We
made muster
(the process
of accounting
for members
in a military
unit) every
day. I finally
flew into
Los Angeles.
Since I had a
little time between flights, I went to a Sears store and
bought some shirts and blue jeans. I flew back into
Lubbock where my parents picked me up and took me
back home to Sweetwater, where I took it easy for a
few days.” By then a Sergeant, Finke “drove to Camp
Lejeune with four or five months left in the service.
I trained recruits in small arms, bazookas. After
dropping off a buddy in the swamps in Louisiana, I
stayed there about a week and then headed on back to
Texas.”

Back in West Texas, John went back to work for his
old employer, Western Electric. He “moved around
quite a bit as a phone and equipment installer. Later, I
went to work for Southwestern Bell. I was married two

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