83-Year Old War Veteran Stands by His Vietnam Bunker Buddy, Keeps Promise They Made

In 1968 a promise was made.

Fighting for their own country, Master Sgt. William H. Cox and First Sgt. James T. Hollingsworth were stuck in a bunker, wondering if they would survive.

The two were in the Marble Mountains of Vietnam when they were inspired to make a deal. With the sounds of explosives in close quarters, they were unsure if they would live to see another day.

“If we survived this attack, or survived Vietnam, we would contact each other every year on New Year’s,” Cox told the Greenville News.

The promise was kept to this day almost 50 years later contacting each other every New Year to discuss what’s new in each other’s lives.

Although the tradition was kept lively, last year, Hollingsworth told Cox he was terminally ill. When news broke about the situation, Cox traveled 125 miles to see him where another promise was to be made.

Hollingsworth would go on to ask Cox to deliver the eulogy at his funeral in which he agreed to. “I said, ‘Boy, that’s a rough mission you’re assigning me to there,’ ” Cox said.
 

Earlier this year, he kept his promise to his long-time friend. He stood guard at the casket of his fellow friend and told the room of loved ones and friends of the bond the two shared.

“There’s a bond between Marines that’s different from any other branch of service. We’re like brothers,” Cox told Greenville News.

When the two were serving with each other, Cox would repeat the same line every time they took to the skies. Hollingsworth was the pilot and Cox was the gunner.

Decades later, at the Hollingsworth funeral, Cox ended the eulogy with a sentence he’d already said to his friend a hundred times.

” Hollie, you keep ’em flying, and I’ll keep ’em firing.”

While one of the two men have passed onto another life, the promise between the two will be kept forever.