Another high school classmate passed away

It's sobering for sure. I've stayed in touch with a girl I graded with, and she's always up to speed on who all is no longer with us from our class, and it feels like a gut-punch every time I see her and she tells me someone new has passed away.
 
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So sad for you...

Did they all die from various things ? I presume they were all in their 60's like you .. was there any pattern that you noticed?..were they all still living in the area , did they die from similar ailments ?
 
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Try not to dwell on those numbers...
I was looking at a pictures from our Pig Picking when I surprised the wife with a renewal of vows on our 20th in 2005...
7 of those present, friends and family, are only with us in memory....
 
I check our FB page to see what everybody is doing. They show the obits also. I can send flowers or comment on the obits if I want to. Not many of ours have passed.
 
- Class of 1965. Newton, Massachusetts. We are all 72 or 73 years old.
- The class website lists 989 names as members (academic high school + trade school).
- Of those 989, 44% (435) are listed as registered on the site or known to be dead. The other 66% are listed as "missing."
- Of those 435, 38% (120) are listed as deceased, which is about what you would expect for our age group.
 
We lost 4 or 5 in the 4 or 5 months. One was one of my best friends, the other was a cousin by marriage (him from CV-19). I lost count of how many of my classmates have passed. Someone on FB is keeping a list. Ironically, the person who started the list died from cancer a couple of years ago. We had 703 people in my graduation class.
 
Never checked about my school mates. However, that 20% number comes close to another statistic...

How many in-country Vietnam combat veterans of the approximately 2.7 million that served in country are estimated to still be alive as of early 2026? Recent sources, including veteran organizations like DAV (Disabled American Veterans) and various veteran community reports/updates from 2025–2026, point to fewer than 850,000 still living, with some estimates dipping toward 600,000–700,000 or around 610,000 in circulating posts and discussions. One commonly referenced (though informal) figure from veteran groups is about 610,000 alive today, representing roughly 23% of the original in-country number.

These numbers align with the reality that Vietnam vets (mostly born in the 1940s–early 1950s) are now in their mid-70s to early 80s, and the population is declining rapidly—often cited as 300–500+ per day due to age-related factors, health issues from service (including Agent Orange exposure), and natural causes.
It's a sobering number, and it hits harder when you've been there yourself.
 
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