VOICES OF VIETNAM
September 11, 2026
James Franklin “Jim” Sherrer
United States Army
Vietnam Veteran
Laurens, South Carolina
Born August 8, 1949
“Before He Was Papa, He Was Soldier.”
From the Mountains of South Carolina to the Mountains of Vietnam
To his grandson, he was once “Papa Bear.”
Later, simply:
Papa.
To others he has been Jim, Jimmy, Jimbo.
But for one extraordinary chapter of his life, from 1970 into 1971, James Franklin Sherrer carried another name.
Soldier.
James was born August 8, 1949, to Cecil and Inez Sherrer in the small South Carolina town of Ware Shoals.
He graduated from Ware Shoals High School and began building the future he expected to have.
College.
A degree.
A career.
A family.
He enrolled at the University of South Carolina in Columbia.
Then Selective Service changed the direction of his life.
His grandson Davis records that James was taken from his first year of college after being called through Selective Service Local Board No. 24 in Greenwood, South Carolina.
The classroom would have to wait.
Vietnam would not.
Fort Jackson
James entered the United States Army and trained at Fort Jackson, South Carolina.
The young college student became PV1 Sherrer.
Training prepared him for an assignment far removed from the familiar towns and roads of South Carolina.
According to the family biography submitted by Davis, James went on to serve in an infantry company associated with the 101st Airborne Division in the mountainous northwestern reaches of South Vietnam.
Among the places remembered in his story is one name that still resonates through the history of the Vietnam War:
A Shau Valley
The mountains there were beautiful from a distance.
For the men who fought among them, they could become something entirely different.
Dense jungle.
Steep terrain.
Remote firebases.
Enemy movement through areas that formed part of the larger network supplying Communist forces operating in South Vietnam.
This became part of James Sherrer’s world.
Jefferson Glenn and Texas Star
His grandson records that James participated in operations remembered as:
Operation Jefferson Glenn
and
Operation Texas Star
These were no sightseeing tours through the mountains.
For an infantryman, military operations could mean days defined by patrols, heat, rain, uncertainty, weight on the back and constant awareness of what might be beyond the next ridgeline.
Davis also preserved something invaluable.
James wrote down his own memories.
That matters enormously.
Because military records can tell us where units moved.
They can tell us dates.
They can list awards.
But the veteran himself tells us what it felt like.
And James believed that one of the lasting things the Army gave him was discipline.
According to Davis, he said that discipline served him well throughout the rest of his life.
Vietnam took much from him.
But James carried something home from it too.
The Combat Infantryman
The awards recorded in the family biography tell us something about the kind of service James experienced.
They include:
National Defense Service Medal
Vietnam Service Medal with one Bronze Service Star
Republic of Vietnam Campaign Medal
Army Commendation Medal
Combat Infantryman Badge
Air Medal
Sharpshooter qualification with the M-16 rifle
and
Purple Heart
Those aren’t merely decorations arranged in a shadowbox.
Each represents a chapter.
The Combat Infantryman Badge identifies service in the brutal world of ground combat.
The Purple Heart tells us that Vietnam did not leave James untouched physically.
The family preserved those awards.
Some are laminated and protected.
His medals remain displayed in a shadowbox James had made.
Years later, another remarkable thing happened.
Medals That Waited Decades to Come Home
James was eventually inducted into the Laurens Hall of Heroes.
His family attended the ceremony at Lander University in Greenwood.
For Davis, watching his grandfather being honored created an almost surreal realization.
The man he knew as Papa was also the young soldier who had done all these things decades before Davis was born.
And according to Davis, during that recognition process the Army reviewed James’s military record again.
They discovered that some awards had never actually been presented to him.
Imagine that.
A veteran goes through combat.
Returns home.
Raises a family.
Builds a career.
Decades pass.
Then someone examines the record and realizes:
America still owed this soldier something.
Those medals finally found their way home.
Fort Hood and the Long Road Out
James eventually returned to the United States.
His final duty assignment, according to the DD-214 information preserved by the family, was:
Company C
2nd Battalion, 41st Infantry
2nd Armored Division
Fort Hood, Texas
Fifth U.S. Army
He was later discharged into the United States Army Reserve, with a military obligation continuing until February 17, 1976.
On paper, active service can end with a signature and a date.
But veterans know better.
Coming home from war and leaving war behind are two different things.
Trying to Become James Again
James returned to civilian life.
He returned to school.
This time, education would not be interrupted.
He earned a Bachelor’s Degree in Business Administration from Lander University.
He worked for local banks for many years.
He married.
He and his wife built a new brick home together in a pleasant neighborhood.
Their son, Davis’s father, was born in May 1979.
Four years later came a daughter.
From the outside, this looked like the American life James had fought his way back toward.
Education.
Marriage.
Children.
Career.
Home.
But Davis understands something now that perhaps only families of combat veterans can fully understand.
Part of Vietnam had come home too.
The War That Followed Him Home
Davis writes compassionately about what his grandfather carried after returning from Vietnam.
He does not judge him.
He tries to understand him.
His grandparents eventually separated while their children were in college.
Davis, born years later, never knew them together.
But he knows there was love there.
And he understands that Vietnam imposed a burden not only upon the person who served, but often upon those who loved that person afterward.
That is one reason Voices of Vietnam matters.
The Vietnam War did not always end when the airplane landed back in America.
Sometimes it entered the house quietly.
It followed veterans into marriages.
Into sleep.
Into work.
Into parenting.
Into decades when people around them had already decided the war was history.
For James Sherrer and his family, Vietnam became part of the family story.
Then Came Davis
In 2007, another Sherrer entered James’s life.
His grandson.
Davis.
And somewhere along the way, the soldier became Papa Bear.
Then simply Papa.
Davis is James’s only grandchild.
And reading his biography, one thing becomes abundantly clear:
James showed up.
Davis remembers his grandfather picking him up from school most days for years.
Not occasionally.
Not when convenient.
Most days.
That ordinary act may tell us as much about James Sherrer as any medal.
The infantryman who once traveled through Vietnam’s mountains became the grandfather waiting outside a school.
The soldier who once carried military equipment eventually carried the responsibilities of being Papa.
And when Davis finally became old enough to drive himself, James gave him something else.
His truck.
Davis still loves driving it.
Because it reminds him of his grandfather.
Of James’s generosity.
Of the kind of man who, Davis says, would give him anything he could if he needed it.
Papa and the Dogs
Another detail Davis gives us belongs nowhere on a military citation.
Which is precisely why it belongs here.
James loves animals.
Davis says he doesn’t think he knows anyone who loves animals as much as his grandfather.
Today, health challenges and surgeries have created a new campaign for James.
His longtime brick home has been undergoing improvements so he can continue living there safely.
While the work is completed and James heals, he has been staying with his daughter.
And there are plenty of dogs.
For James, that sounds less like temporary housing and more like a pretty good headquarters.
He is surrounded by family.
And animals.
Two things he loves.
A Brick With His Name
At the local Veterans Affairs office, a fundraiser once offered engraved bricks.
James’s family purchased one for him.
His name was carved into it and placed in the walkway leading toward the building.
And whenever James or his family visits…
they look for Papa’s brick.
Think about the journey contained inside that little piece of stone.
Ware Shoals.
College.
Selective Service.
Fort Jackson.
Vietnam.
The A Shau Valley.
Combat.
A Purple Heart.
Fort Hood.
College again.
Banking.
Marriage.
Children.
A grandson.
And now a brick bearing his name.
People walk across that pathway every day.
Some may never know the story represented by those letters.
Davis does.
And now we do too.
From Soldier to Papa
Perhaps this is where the real story of James Franklin Sherrer lives.
Not exclusively in Vietnam.
Not exclusively in the awards.
But in everything that came afterward.
James survived war and then began the far longer task of building a life.
He finished college.
Worked.
Built a home.
Raised children.
Became a grandfather.
Picked a boy up from school.
Gave him a truck.
Loved animals.
Kept his medals.
And watched another generation begin to understand the price he had paid before they were ever born.
There are heroes whose courage becomes known through one spectacular moment.
There are others whose heroism unfolds across an entire lifetime.
James Sherrer belongs to that second company.
Davis Sherrer
The Grandson Who Kept the Story
And tomorrow, Micky, I think we should make Davis part of the tribute, because without him we would have the veteran’s record.
With him…
we have the man.
Davis preserved the nicknames.
Papa Bear.
Papa.
Jim.
Jimmy.
Jimbo.
He preserved the school pickups.
The truck.
The dogs.
The brick.
The shadowbox.
The marriages and struggles.
The delayed medals.
And he preserved something even more important:
empathy.
He understands that the freedom James helped defend came at a tremendous personal cost.
Davis wrote:
“We will never forget what he did for us to have our freedom. Mainly, because it took away his freedom.”
That sentence could only come from someone who has spent time thinking about what war takes from people.
Not only lives.
Sometimes innocence.
Sometimes peace.
Sometimes years that never feel entirely free again.
And Davis has made sure that James Sherrer’s sacrifice will not disappear when the generation that fought in Vietnam is gone.
That is how remembrance survives.
One generation tells the next.
Reflection
What Freedom Cost Papa
Children learn about freedom as an idea.
Flags.
The Constitution.
The Fourth of July.
The national anthem.
Grandchildren sometimes learn about it differently.
They learn by looking across the room at someone they love.
Davis Sherrer has spent his life looking at James Franklin Sherrer.
At first, he saw Papa Bear.
Then Papa.
Only later did he begin to understand the soldier.
The infantryman.
The Purple Heart veteran.
The young college student whose plans were interrupted by war.
The man who went into Vietnam and returned changed.
James helped preserve freedom for people he would never meet.
But freedom demanded something from him in return.
Part of his youth.
Part of his peace.
Part of the life he might otherwise have lived.
Yet Vietnam did not get everything.
Because James came home.
He built.
He learned.
He worked.
He loved.
He became a father.
Then a grandfather.
And eventually a little boy called him:
Papa Bear.
Perhaps that is victory too.
VOICES OF VIETNAM
September 11, 2026
The Micky Spano Radio Show proudly honors:
JAMES FRANKLIN SHERRER
UNITED STATES ARMY
VIETNAM VETERAN
Born: August 8, 1949
Home: Laurens / Ware Shoals, South Carolina
Training: Fort Jackson, South Carolina
Vietnam Service: 1970–1971, according to the family biography
Area remembered: A Shau Valley
Operations remembered: Texas Star and Jefferson Glenn
Final active-duty station: Fort Hood, Texas
Reserve obligation completed: February 17, 1976
Education after Vietnam: Bachelor of Business Administration, Lander University
Recognition: Laurens Hall of Heroes
And among the decorations preserved in his family’s account:
Purple Heart
Army Commendation Medal
Air Medal
Combat Infantryman Badge
Vietnam Service Medal with Bronze Service Star
We honor the journey from:
SOLDIER → FATHER → PAPA
We honor a South Carolina veteran who carried Vietnam home with him, built a life anyway, and became the grandfather a young man could always count on.
And we honor Davis Sherrer, who made sure his Papa’s voice reached another generation.
BEFORE HE WAS PAPA, HE WAS SOLDIER.
BEFORE DAVIS KNEW THE HERO, HE KNEW THE MAN.
NOW AMERICA SHOULD KNOW BOTH.
James Franklin Sherrer served his country.
He came home.
He endured.
He built.
And his story continues through the grandson who calls him:
PAPA
The Micky Spano Radio Show proudly honors Vietnam Veteran James Franklin Sherrer as our September 11, 2026, Voices of Vietnam veteran.