Among the articles were photos. Some were patriotic, such as a portrait of Gen. George “Old Blood and Guts” Patton. Others were horrific, such the charred remains of German prisoners after S. S. forces burned them or the emaciated, zombie-like bodies of U.S. Marines in Japanese POW camps.

It’s Bill Morris’s job to catalog and help organize the history of local military men and women.

Morris served as an infantry member in the Marines Corps from 1966 to 1969. He saw action during the Arab-Israeli Six-Day War in 1967 and then 13 months in Vietnam – from November 1967 to December 1968 – during the war in Southeast Asia.

“I went over to help America,” he said. “I know that sounds kind of corny.”

Though a longtime resident of New Jersey, Morris moved to Lake Placid a little more than two years ago and almost immediately got involved with Post 326.

Down in the basement, next to a stack of Boy Scouts of America magazines, there was a handful of foreign World War I helmets. The metal on each had rusted and turned brown and rough. A British brodie and a German storm trooper were slightly mangled and had holes in them. Morris said it probably just wasn’t wear and tear and more likely an indication of something else.

Some of the things Morris is in charge of don’t have to do with military life, rather the history of the post such as meeting minutes and agendas. Taped to the wall of the bar is a beer order list from decades ago. Some of the beers don’t even exist anymore.

Morris said he didn’t initially have plans for military service. Out of high school, he mowed lawns for a while. He then got a job on Wall Street as a quote boy, which was like a middle-man who relayed information between the stock exchange and a broker.

“The weekly pay was about $25,” he said, “but the monthly train ticket was $12, so I had to work a couple of other jobs here and there.”

After that, he started going to night school, but the draft had become more and more popular with the U.S. military. Morris’s father, who served during World War II and was pro-military, inspired him to join the Marines.

By the time Morris got to Vietnam, he was in his mid-20s. Many of the men he served with were younger, closer to 19 and 22. Morris said he served the majority of his time in the field – 99 percent is how he classified it. He spent his 25th birthday in a foxhole.

“You carried everything you own on your back,” he said. “I would throw out stamps because they were too heavy, not to be overly dramatic. We lived in a foxhole a lot of the time, eating two C-ration meals a day. I spent 102 days in Khe Sanh.”

Khe Sanh was the site of 77-day long battle in 1968 where 155 Marines were killed in action and 425 were wounded. It’s regarded as the deadliest and longest battle of the Vietnam War.

About 58,200 U.S. military personnel died during the war.

“It was probably the hardest time for casualties,” Morris said. “Being in the infantry was not easy. The country was not easy. It was a time of racial strife, even in the service, not in the field, though. Martin Luther King Jr. had been killed and Robert Kennedy. It was a pretty tough time.”

Vietnam is up there with World War II as one of the wars that has been adapted the most to the big screen. Morris said he doesn’t normally care for Vietnam movies or how it’s often depicted in film. He said Ken Burns’s documentary “The Vietnam War” didn’t present it in the most accurate way, either.

“I do happen to like ‘We Were Soldiers,’ though,” he said.

The Mel Gibson film isn’t as highly acclaimed as other Vietnam movies such as “Platoon” or “Full Metal Jacket,” but it’s considered a more accurate representation of the war, kind of like what “Tora! Tora! Tora!” is for Pearl Harbor.

Veterans Day is Sunday. It and Memorial Day in May are often misinterpreted as homogeneous; however, Veterans Day commemorates people who have served who are still alive, and Memorial Day honors those who have died. For a senior project, recent Lake Placid High School graduate Scott Schulz made six banners of local military men and women to hang on street lights near Post 326.

“Veterans Day has always been important as the one day where we can really celebrate our service,” Morris said. “We as a board selected the people we wanted to put up. It was a fun project and Scott did a great job.”