I am a partially retired Vietnam vet - '71-'72 (USMC - '69 - '73) Sgt.  I am presently 65 years old and have an addiction to HO as well as Lionel trains.  I got this way from a friend that attended the same church as I.  He was a WWII veteran and flew 29 missions over Nazi Germany.  He invited me over one day to view his HO scale layout and from that moment on, I was addicted to trains.  He passed away back in 1999 and he will be sorely missed.  I began to build my layout back in the mid '80's and started building it up from there.  We moved to eastern TN around the turn of the century and I had to tear down my layout.  It's been sitting in my storage barn for over 13 years now and I've finally decided to put it back up.  Now I have the support of my wife as she has gotten in to it now and wants some creative control which I have encouraged her.  It's strictly a DC layout.  Things have really changed since the '80's; I used to be able to buy an Atlas powered frog turnout for $1.75.  Now they're like $16.00 and up.  And now there's DCC which I think is overpriced for what it does.