Sacco, Charles
Military Service
Served in the 46th Infantry Scout Dog Platoon.
Occupation
Mr. Sacco is a licensed architect and runs his own firm--Sacco and McKinney Architects in Latham.
Other Media
[Knox]--During the Vietnam war, Charles Sacco of Knox was a guard for a platoon with a scout dog, putting him in a precarious position. "We were right up front," Sacco said. For its 11th Annual Veterans Day Program, Sacco will be the special guest of the Town of Wright/Schoharie Valley Lions Club tonight (Thursday). He will be speaking and showing slides of his experience in Vietnam. Sacco told "The Enterprise" he was trained in the United States Army as a company clerk, but, when he was sent to Vietnam in 1969, he was assigned to the 46th Infantry Scout Dog Platoon. Not a dog handler himself, Sacco was positioned "on point." His role was to go ahead of the platoon with the dog and its handler, protecting them. "I was right next to them as a shotgun," Sacco said. He said the dog's job was to sniff out booby traps and any Viet Cong forces that might have been lurking ahead. Although he was assigned to a year-long tour of duty, Sacco was in Vietnam for six months. At that time, he said, Richard Nixon had just taken office and started calling troops home. Sacco's platoon was one of the first. "I got lucky," Sacco said. Sacco, who described himself as "just one of the grunts," said he generally thinks of his time in the Army as a good experience. However, he said, "When I came back home I had mixed feelings." Arriving home on a commercial flight into Chicago's O'Hare airport, Sacco and his fellow soldiers were pelted by protesters with garbage as they moved through the airport, he said. "Ijust felt kind of bad because I was just doing my job," Sacco said. Not wanting to be on a college campus in that kind of atmosphere, Sacco said, he instead got a job as a draftsman for an architecture firm. Now a licensed architect, Sacco runs his own firm, Sacco and McKinney Architects in Latham. Currently, he's heading up the design of the expansion of the Knox Town Hall. Published in The Altamont Enterprise, in an article entitled "Sacco speaks, Vietnam vet 'On Point,' Page 20, 11 Nov 2004 Issue.
Additional Media
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