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Buffalo businessman's Vietnam experience recalled in resurfaced audio

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Sunday marked Vietnam Veterans Day in the U.S. In advance of this annual recognition, WBFO received never-before-released audio from the VA Western New York Healthcare System featuring Buffalo businessman Michael Militello who, before founding some of the area's longtime establishments, was a combat-wounded Vietnam veteran.

The interview was conducted by the VA's Terry McGuire in 2015. Militello, who has served on the veterans committees of Governor Andrew Cuomo and Senator Kirsten Gillibrand, is known by many in Buffalo for his business ventures, beginning with the Brick Bar in 1970, and later establishments including Sunset Bay Beach Club and the Bijou Grille.

McGuire offered the audio to WBFO in early March, inviting the radio station to release the interview for its first time. Though the interview was not studio quality, the conversation begins with Militello explaining his story, from getting drafted while still in high school, to being shot through both legs during an ambush, to coming home and continuing his education, and opening Brick Bar in 1970 for $12,000.

He also shares some stories of misadventures which included being on a plane that was meant for Miami but instead hijacked to Cuba. Toward the end of the interview, he speaks of his first-ever visit to the Vietnam Memorial Wall in Washington, D.C.

It should be noted, the interview does contain expletives, sporadic though very few. In the interest of preserving the emotion of Militello's thoughts at the time of the interview, they have not been cut.

2020-03-30_militello_interview_pt_2.mp3
Part 2 - Militello continues his story of being wounded in the battlefield, then discusses his recovery and therapy, and also the time his Miami-bound flight was hijacked and taken to Cuba.

2020-03-30_militello_interview_pt_3.mp3
Part 3 - Militello concludes his story of being on a hijacked plane, then later discusses the steps taken to open the Brick Bar... and the publicity it received from a local band that was rising at the time, Raven, during a local gig.

2020-03-30_militello_interview_pt_4.mp3
Part 4 - Militello speaks of his battles with veteran bureaucracy, and his first-ever visit to the Vietnam Wall.

Michael Mroziak is an experienced, award-winning reporter whose career includes work in broadcast and print media. When he joined the WBFO news staff in April 2015, it was a return to both the radio station and to Horizons Plaza.
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