Randy Weaver died Wednesday, just three months shy of what would have been the 30th anniversary of the 1992 standoff that thrust him into the national spotlight. He was 74.
Born in Iowa in 1948, Weaver enlisted in the Army at age 20, near the onset of the Vietnam War. He was sent to Fort Bragg, North Carolina, where he became a Green Beret, but he was never sent overseas. While he was home on leave in 1970, he reconnected with an old girlfriend, Vicki Jordison, whom he would marry the following year, after leaving the military.
