For Vietnam veteran Arnold Earl, Veterans Day is an emotional time to honor all those who served in the armed forces.

“I think Veterans Day is one of the most important days of the year; I really do,” he said.

Earl, 65, of Austin, tried to enlist in the army when he was 20, but he was turned down because he had polio as a child. Earl married his wife, Rita, on Sept. 30, 1967, when he was 24 and he was drafted two weeks later on Oct. 15.

“I wasn’t very happy, but I accepted what happened,” Earl said.

By that time, Earl said he was an old man compared to the other soldiers who he said were closer to 18.

Earl’s tour in Vietnam started with something familiar: two weeks of repelling school. Earl ended up helping the instructors because he’d painted water towers for a number of years and was experienced in repelling.

From there he went into the field on various missions.

Earl’s one-year tour in Vietnam was scheduled to end Dec. 17, 1968, and he planned to meet Rita in Hawaii before going home. However, Earl was shot Dec. 3.

Earl’s unit was ambushed after it was dropped in a patch of jungle that was surrounded by the enemy. Earl said there were about 440 soldiers in his unit, and more than 200 were killed. A bullet struck Earl in the head and exited near his hairline above his right eye.

Earl retired on full disability from the army after a long rehabilitation at Walter Reed Army Medical Center in Washington, D.C., the VA Medical Center in Minneapolis and other facilities.

About a year after he came home, Earl was contacted by the head trauma unit at Walter Reed to be part of a study comparing people who’d sustained head injuries to people who hadn’t. He plans to go to the National Naval Medical Center in Bethesda, Md., in June for continued participation in the study.

Earl compared the effects of his injury to that of a stroke. Part of his left side is paralyzed, and he has minimal use of his left arm. He was able to walk well until he fell and hit his head recently. He has since walked with a cane.

Despite limited use of his left arm, Earl said he worked with a friend who did roofing and other small construction jobs for about eight years. After that, he worked in a woodworking shop. A few end tables and cupboards are still in his house. He also built a bed for each of his three sons.

Earl has made the most out of his injury, and he said it even turned out to be a positive thing in the long run.

“By me getting shot or hurt, it may have been one of the best things that ever happened in a way because I was home with my sons all the time,” he said.

While many other fathers work a job and are frequently gone, Earl said he was able to drive his sons Mark, Todd and Ben to school and spend more time with them.

Despite the long lasting effects of his injuries, Earl does not look back negatively at his service time.

“It wasn’t as bad as what some people think,” Earl said. “I enjoyed it. I could have been doing better things. It wasn’t all that bad. Like all our young people we have now in the war, they know what they got to do, so you went out and did it.”

At the same time, Earl is emotional when looking back over his time in Vietnam, especially when he recalled the story of a young soldier who was shot while carrying Earl to the medics after he’d been shot.

While Earl described the Fourth of July as a cheerful time, he said Veterans Day as a more emotional time to honor other veterans.

“We’re all brothers: army, navy, marines, air force, whatever. We’re all the same because we all did our jobs,” Earl said.

Earl said the day is important to honor all veterans, not just those who served in a war.

“I had a lot of friends of mine who said, I’m sorry I didn’t get to go to Vietnam,” Earl said. “I said, don’t be dumb. You didn’t get to go, God bless you. I’m actually happy they didn’t have to go.”

Remembering veterans is not limited to holidays, as Earl has traveled to the Vietnam Memorial in Washington, D.C., multiple times. A painting of a man at the Vietnam Memorial hangs above his dining room table, which is draped in an American flag tablecloth.

Earl is involved with the Veterans of Foreign Wars post in Austin. He also commonly works with the Disabled Veterans of America to install flag poles around the community.

Earl will plans to volunteer Wednesday for the Veterans Day activities and ground-breaking ceremony of the Veterans Memorial.