To commemorate National Vietnam Veterans Day, here are five popular celebrities and public figures who served for the U.S. Armed Forces in Vietnam in some capacity.
1. James Avery:
From Avery's IMDb page: "Although best known as the uncle/patriarch and judge "Philip Banks" on The Fresh Prince of Bel-Air (1990), James Avery is a classically trained actor and scholar. A native of Atlantic City, New Jersey, USA, he joined the US Navy after graduating high school and served in Vietnam from 1968 to 1969. Upon leaving the military, he moved to San Diego, California and began writing TV scripts and poetry for PBS."
2. Dennis Franz: 
Pinterest
The NYPD Blue star "graduated from Southern Illinois University and was immediately drafted into the military. He served 11 month in Vietnam in a reconnaissance unit, and after his service he suffered depression for some time afterwards."
3. Pat Sajak:
From Mental Floss: "[Sajak] wrote a letter to one of his old radio employers who had been elected to Congress. A few calls to the right people later, and Sajak became an Army disc jockey, a job he held for 18 months. Sajak didn't love a lot of the military's radio rules, so he circumvented them. He later told the New York Times, "If you said your name, you were supposed to say your rank - specialist fifth class, which kind of ruins your patter. So on the radio I would just not say my name at all. I went for a year on radio without ever identifying myself.''
4. Roger Staubach
From Stars and Stripes: "Navy Ensign Roger Staubach, a Heisman Trophy winner while playing at the U.S. Naval Academy, tosses a football during a break from his duties as officer-in-charge of both the Personal Effects Division of the Naval Support Activity and a petroleum-oil-lubricant site on the outskirts of Da Nang. After leaving the Navy, Staubach enjoyed a Hall of Fame career with the Dallas Cowboys."
5. Jimmy Stewart
The star of It's a Wonderful Life and Alfred Hitchcock's Rear Window and Vertigo, Stewart served previously in World War II flying B-17 and B-24 bombers. According to Stewart's biography, "he retired from the Air Force in 1968 (mandatory retirement age) and received the Distinguished Service Medal."