Master Sgt. Richard Hitchens ended his 42-year military career Sept. 7, when he retired from the Delaware Army National Guard. Hitchens is the last active Delaware Guardsman to have served in the Vietnam War, where he was a radio telephone operator with the 1st Cavalry Division. Using a bogus birth certificate, Hitchens left home to join the Army at age 16 in 1968. While in Vietnam, he earned a Bronze Star medal with valor device for supplying ammunition to comrades during a 1969 firefight. ‘The machine gunners were screaming for ammo but everyone was either dead or wounded. We were about to be overrun. I remember thinking I can’t die here. I grabbed ammo and started running it up to the gunners. I became the assistant gunner and helped lay down fire,’ Hitchens said. While remaining in the Guard, Hitchens, 62, also worked as a counselor at the Veterans Affairs medical treatment facility in Georgetown, Del. He is pursuing a college degree in human services counseling, and wants to help younger veterans make the transition back to civilian life.