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Once a month, an Allentown couple travels to Lancaster County to enjoy the sights and do some antiquing.
On Saturday, June 3, Vietnam Veteran Victor Otero made the discovery of a lifetime in one shop in Paradise.
Victor and his wife Mo have a routine when they get to Mod-ish Lancaster on Old Philly Pike.
“We start in the front and work our way to the back because they have different rooms that you can browse around in,” Victor Otero said.
This month, there was more in the store.
“We noticed that they opened the downstairs portion of it, so we explored that and that’s where it all happened,” Victor said.
Victor, a former member of the U.S. Air Force, saw himself. An image of him, at 19 or 20 years old, serving in Vietnam is on the cover.
“I saw the album and I saw my picture on it. So, I said to my wife, ‘Oh my God, this is me, it’s me.’ And she looked at it and she started crying as well, but I never would have thought that my picture would be on an album,” Victor said.
“Usually when people come up front, I might say something like, ‘Oh, I see you found something,’ and they’re like, ‘Oh yeah, we found something,'” store owner Karen Stauffer said.
Stauffer insisted she buy the album for the veteran.
“All these years later, after he had served, he sees himself as a young man, and I’m like, ‘He shouldn’t have to pay for that memory,'” Stauffer said.
The image is even on the record itself.
“It just brings back memories, you know, 54 years of memories,” Victor said.
“It made it real for me. It’s one thing to hear it but to see it, it made it real,” Mo Otero said.
A simple picture having a big impact decades later.
“That’s the most important thing, it validated his service,” Mo said.
The record, called “Vietnam; With the American Fighting Man” is a documentary album including sounds, interviews, and songs popular in the Vietnam era.
Victor said he hasn’t listened to it yet, but he will in time.
