 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. 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. 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. 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. He would wonder, from time to time, whatever happened to his Army friend, Dave. The back-and-forth e-mails that followed unraveled answers to questions pondered by both men for four decades. The odds are probably slimmer than the fence that separates their yards. Roger Watson said he saw only glimpses of his neighbor from a distance now and then through the years. Roger Watson said he simply was friends with Peggy Brown "over the fence" as both of them fed the birds. “To tell you the truth, I was flabbergasted,” Dave said. “It was just an incredible feeling, just amazing,” he added.
– 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.)