Please click on "original" below to see this image at the largest size.

Thank you to SFC Larry Coppala, US Army Retired, for providing this old image of a Miami Herald story about then Vice President Hubert H. Humphrey tape recording a message to him at Opa-locka Airport while he was serving in Viet Nam.

Larry says in part: "V.P. Humphrey taped a message to me for my wife Sheila at Opa-locka Airport Sunday, May 21st 1967. It made the front page of the Miami Herald. I was a Platoon Sgt in Viet Nam at the time. The audio tape was played many times by Miami and Hialeah radio stations over the next two months. And the Armed Forces Radio Service(AFRS) played the tape in Viet Nam also many times. It was a BIG morale booster."

"In Hialeah I lived at 126 W. 34th Street from '57-59. Then moved to 40 W. 63d Street, until I joined the Army in 1960. I attended Henry H. Filer Jr High School 1957-1959. Then quit school and went to work. I would REALLY like to find old friends. Although I visited Hialeah many times I never returned there to live. As I made my career in Army Aviation and was overseas eleven years out of twenty-two active duty. I now reside in Fairdale, KY next door to Louisville on the south side. I met my wife Sheila Strotman, formerly of Louisville, in Hialeah and married her there in 1963. Our 46th Anniversary will be this coming August. I met her at the Pizza Palace on 49th Street in Hialeah, while I was home on leave."

Larry's e-mail address is: k4sfc@bellsouth.net