This is an I-Heart podcast.

Guaranteed human.

And we continue with our American stories.

And this one is a military family story.

And you're going to hear right now from Mike McDaniel,

the son of a naval aviator deployed in Vietnam. We grew up as a Navy family. We had many

gatherings where the families would get together, the wives and the children, so we kind of a community

within the aviation squadrons.

And I remember one day, I can remember it like it was yesterday. May 19th, it was a beautiful day

outside, Friday afternoon, happy go lucky third grade kid, walking home from school, couldn't wait

to get home, spend the weekend playing with my buddies in the neighborhood.

And as I approached the house, I noticed there were about a dozen cars in the driveway and along the street.

And again, not atypical for a Navy family because they get together, so I didn't think anything out of it.

So I went in the house, and as soon as I walked in the house, Mrs. Miles,

who was a wife of another squattermate of my dad's, came up and she says, you're going

to come home with me for the weekend to spend the night with Gary and Larry. There were

her sons that were kind of two of my good friends.

Okay, so I didn't really have anything planned, but it sounded okay.

So we got in her car, and on the way to her house, we stopped at a Hides ice cream store.

Hise ice cream stores at that time were like candy heaven for a kid.

You could get ice cream, multi-flavors, and they had these candy racks. You can remember.

They were like, you know, they were huge, as I remember them as a kid. And she said to me,

...