The Vietnam War ....I was going to say was huge in my life but the verb would be IS.  In 1970 I met the most handsome man.  I knew his brother and he lived next door to my sister.  We met at a barbecue at her house.  He had just gotten home from Vietnam.  Because I was 17 and stupid, I asked him if he had killed anyone in Vietnam.  I don't remember his answer.  I remember his beautiful smile  and his broad shoulders. I told my cousin Sue that night that I was going to marry him.  I didn't even know his last name.  We never missed a day being together after that.  He would drive up to see me and wait for me outside on the lawn of my high school.  That summer we took jeep rides up to the lake, went to Mooney's Grove, and swam in the pool. He would come for dinner at my house, he loved my mother's home cooking.  On the 4th of July, when the first firework went off, he hit the ground.