Nguyen Tan Hoa, 55, stands on the bank of the Vu Gia River across from the spot where Sgt. Michael Frank Flynn was killed in April, 1965 outside the village of Tam Hoa, Vietnam. Flynn was the team leader for Charlie 2-2-4 under the Combined Action Program, which sent small units of Marines into villages in South Vietnam to train local militia and keep Viet Cong guerrillas out. As a boy, Nguyen spent much of his free time hanging out with the Marines, who adopted him into the unit. It was the most profound experience of his life, and he still refers to himself proudly as a Marine. "When the Americans left in '75, I really felt like I was the last G.I. in Vietnam," he says. May 12, 2012.