Buy Photo Roger Watson, left, and David Brown have been neighbors in Berkley for 18 years, but didn’t realize until recently that they were friends in the Vietnam War, drafted on the same day, trained in the same places and served in the same company. (Photo: Ryan Garza Detroit Free Press)Buy Photo 
 
 Dave Brown had scoured the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington looking for his Army basic training buddy Roger Watson's name. 
 
 While in Vietnam in 1968, Brown ran into someone from Watson's company and heard that his friend had been injured. 
 
 The word was true — Watson was shot March 8, 1968, seven months into his tour, losing a kidney and 3 feet of small intestine and suffering damage to his liver. 
 
 But Brown never found out if his friend lived or died. 
 
 The two men — who came from the same northwest Detroit neighborhood, were drafted on the same day in 1966, trained together at Ft. Hood in Texas, served in the 9th Infantry and were combat engineer demolition specialists — never saw or heard from each other again. 
 
 Until right before Halloween this year. 
 
 That's when the two men — more than 40 years older than the last time they saw each other as young soldiers in training — walked across their kitty-corner backyards in Berkley and met at the chain-link fence. 
 
 For 18 years, the two Oakland County men had lived nearly back to back and didn't even know it. 
 
 Weeks after reuniting, they still can't believe it. 
 
 Vietnam vets and long-lost friends David Brown and Roger Watson of Berkley found out they have been neighbors for 18 years. Ryan Garza/Detroit Free Press 
 
 "I was absolutely delighted," Brown, 68, a retired surveyor, said of learning about Watson, grateful his friend survived. "I wondered about you for 40 years." 
 
 "I always wondered what happened to you," Watson, 67, a retired supervisor with the Michigan Department of Corrections, told Brown as the two sat in Watson's home recently, sipping coffee, sharing war stories and telling their amazing reunion story. 
 
 That story is a story in itself. 
 
 And it's thanks to Brown's wife, Peggy, who has been neighborly with Watson because of their common interest in birds. 
 
 Peggy Brown was taking a walk one day when she noticed the Purple Heart license plate on Watson's car and mentioned it to her husband. On another occasion, she noticed the 9th Infantry Vietnam Veterans cap in the rear window of the car. 
 
 Then, on Oct. 27, the revelation happened — during e-mail exchanges between her and Watson that began about a picture of a hawk. 
 
 "On a different subject my husband Dave was in the ninth infantry 15th combat engineers' 1967-1968 Vietnam. Wondering if you were there at that time. … I saw that you were in the ninth," she wrote Watson. 
 
 The back-and-forth e-mails that followed unraveled answers to questions pondered by both men for four decades. 
 
 "Small World!!!!!!" and "Wow !!!!" and questions, such as whether Watson's nickname was Bunny (it wasn't) and if Dave Brown's hair was blond (it was), were sprinkled through the evolving exchanges. 
 
 "I think we may have volunteered together," Watson wrote Peggy Brown. "Please don't believe any stories he may tell about me! Also let him know I've changed a lot since basic." 
 
 After looking at photos of the men as soldiers via e-mail that day, Peggy Brown wrote: "This has to be coincidence of the century. Dave cannot believe all this and we've been here for 18 years in Berkley. What are the odds?" 
 
 That's been the reaction of the men, their wives and the friends they've told since the long-lost Army buddies found each other again. 
 
 "It takes one little piece of information to put the whole thing together," said Watson's wife, Edie. 
 
 Roger Watson said he saw only glimpses of his neighbor from a distance now and then through the years. 
 
 When the foliage is out, both couples said, it's impossible to see into each others' backyards. Roger Watson said he simply was friends with Peggy Brown "over the fence" as both of them fed the birds. 
 
 "I was almost shaken," Roger Watson said of learning his Army buddy was his neighbor. "This is almost too wild." 
 
 "This is incredible," Dave Brown said. "It's amazing. So much time has elapsed." 
 
 But to hear the men — now longtime husbands, fathers and grandfathers — talk recently, it was like no time had passed at all. 
 
 They recalled being drafted, training in Texas — running everywhere, cleaning the barracks and spit-shining shoes — and leaving for life-changing experiences in Vietnam while their hometown of Detroit was experiencing its own life-changing event in the 1967 riot. 
 
 Watson talked about when he was shot; Brown recalled the first body he encountered as a soldier. 
 
 The experiences are among many etched in the memories of both men — memories neither can shed, just like the smell of diesel or the sound of a helicopter. 
 
 Now, they have another memory — discovering each other. 
 
 "It's sort of amazing we've been neighbors this long," Watson said. 
 
 Brown agreed. 
 
 "It's just great to see him alive," he said. "It makes me happy." 
 
 Read or Share this story: http://on.freep.com/1BaPhDJ ||||| BERKLEY (WXYZ) - October 6, 1966. 
 
 
 
 It was the day Roger Watson was drafted, and the day he met a friend who never quite left his memory - Dave Brown. 
 
 
 
 Dave remembers Roger too. 
 
 
 
 Both men were from northwest Detroit and went through basic Army training together in Fort Hood, Texas. They became fast friends. Then they went home for a month before serving in Vietnam. 
 
 
 
 “After that, we never did see one another,” Dave recalls. 
 
 
 
 Dave had heard that Roger was wounded early in his tour, but never learned if he had survived. 
 
 
 
 After returning home, Roger got married, had kids and settled down on Franklin Road in Berkley. He would wonder, from time to time, whatever happened to his Army friend, Dave. 
 
 
 
 About five years ago, Roger befriended a neighbor whose backyard lied kitty-corner to his. Her name was Peggy Brown. 
 
 
 
 “We’d sort of wave and it went from a wave to coming up the fence to chatting a little bit,” Roger described. 
 
 
 
 The two bird watched together and later exchanged emails to share pictures of birds. 
 
 
 
 Little did Roger know, Peggy was married to Dave Brown. 
 
 
 
 The pieces began falling together late October when Peggy noticed Roger was a wounded vet. She saw the Purple Heart logo on his license plate. Then she noticed the baseball cap visible from the back window of Roger’s car that read, “9th Infantry.” It was the same infantry Dave had served in. 
 
 
 
 The rest unraveled quickly through a rapid series of emails between Peggy and Roger. 
 
 
 
 “To tell you the truth, I was flabbergasted,” Dave said. 
 
 
 
 “We’ve been neighbors for 18 years and didn’t realize, here we were,” Roger said. 
 
 
 
 The odds are probably slimmer than the fence that separates their yards. A meeting - in the yard - was quickly arranged. 
 
 
 
 “He came running out of the house, over to the corner, had to beat back the brush, we just shook hands and couldn’t believe it,” Roger said. “It was just an incredible feeling, just amazing,” he added. 
 
 
 
 A long-lost friendship, reclaimed after almost half a century. 
 
 
 
 “We’re going to share a beer every now and then, and we’re going to be seeing a lot more of each other,” Roger smiled. 
 
 
 
 “Grow very old and watch our grandchildren grow up,” Dave said. 
 
 
 
 When you have decades of catching up to do, it helps to live just 150 feet apart.
– A Detroit man who long pondered the fate of his old Army buddy found him in the oddest of places: living practically next door for the last 18 years. Dave Brown heard that his basic training buddy Roger Watson had been wounded in Vietnam, which was true—Watson lost a kidney and suffered other organ damage after being shot early in his tour in 1968, the Detroit Free Press reports. Brown even checked the Vietnam Veterans Memorial to see whether his fellow combat engineer demolition specialist, who trained with him at Ft. Hood in Texas, had died. Then Brown's wife, Peggy, befriended a kitty-corner neighbor over the back fence, chatting with him about their mutual interest in birds. She was also intrigued by the Purple Heart license plate on his car, and 9th Infantry Vietnam Veterans cap in his car's rear window. So she asked about them in an email. Soon, the exclamation points were flying: "Small world!!!!!!" and "Wow!!!!" are among the words in their email exchange as they figured out who was who. A backyard meeting was quickly arranged, and Brown "came running out of the house, over to the corner, had to beat back the brush, we just shook hands and couldn’t believe it," Watson tells WXYZ. "It was just an incredible feeling, just amazing." Reclaiming their friendship after nearly half a century, they plan to "share a beer every now and then" and see "a lot more of each other," says Watson. "Grow very old and watch our grandchildren grow up," adds Dave. "It's just great to see him alive. It makes me happy." (Read about a guy apparently outed as "fake" Army veteran.)