FORT BELVOIR, Va. – One young woman, inspired by her father’s service in World War II, joined the Army to be a nurse.

Another young man, motivated by stories of history and the Army’s place in it while in grade school set his sights on a career in the military.

Both wound up in the Vietnam War and decades later shared their stories and tangible pieces of that personal history here, at the National Museum of the U.S. Army on March 29, National Vietnam War Veterans Day.

Retired Lt. Col. Marcia L. Kidd heard her father, a Battle of the Bulge veteran, tell how he frostbite crept into his legs and an Army nurse massaged them warm through the night. He told her he had to go home and dance with his wife.

That inspired a teenage Kidd to look to become an Army nurse herself. Graduating basic training in 1969 she did follow-on training at Fort Gordon, Georgia where the young Army captain met her “soulmate” 2nd Lt. Richard Goodwin Kidd Jr. She followed him to Vietnam, where he served in the signal corps.