THE WALL OF FACES

Dear SP4 Paul Rex Combs, sir

As an American, I would like to thank you for your service and for your sacrifice made on behalf of our wonderful country. The youth of today could gain much by learning of heroes such as yourself, men and women whose courage and heart can never be questioned.

May God allow you to read this, and may He allow me to someday shake your hand when I get to Heaven to personally thank you. May he also allow my father to find you and shake your hand now to say thank you; for America, and for those who love you.

With respect, Sir

Curt Carter

out of 58,0000 american dead in this terrible war how can we expect anyone to remember this one brave man? so young, so full of promise and untapped potential. endless posibilitys for a great and succesfull life snuffed out in an instant by a stray bullet.

Paul is buried at Kirk Cemetery in Allendale, MO.

Taken from the website:
http://www.facesfromthewall.com/1968jan.html#combpa

Local Soldier Dies In Action

Paul R. Combs, 21, has been killed in action in Vietnam, his father, Rex Combs, 2031 Roy Road has been notified by the Defense Department. Sergeant Combs, was killed Sunday while serving with the 23rd regiment of the 25th Infantry Division in the Iron-Triangle area. A graduate of Bellingham High School, Sergeant Combs attended Western Washington State College for a year before enlisting in the Army in 1966. He was promoted to Sergeant two weeks ago. Survivors include the father; a brother, Geoffrey, a senior at Sehome High School, and his grandmother, Mrs. Gussie Combs in Missouri. His father said today the Defense Department said the family would be notified later this week when the body would be returned for services and burial. Sergeant Combs is the 23rd area man to die in the Vietnam conflict. (The Bellingham Herald, Bellingham WA, 23 Jan 1968)

FOREVER REMEMBERED

"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you....and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.....Be not ashamed to say you loved them....
Take what they have left and what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own....And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind...."

Quote from a letter home by Maj. Michael Davis O'Donnell
KIA 24 March 1970. Distinguished Flying Cross: Shot down and Killed while attempting to rescue 8 fellow soldiers surrounded by attacking enemy forces.

We Nam Brothers pause to give a backward glance, and post this remembrance to you, one of the gentle heroes lost to the War in Vietnam:

Slip off that pack. Set it down by the crooked trail. Drop your steel pot alongside. Shed those magazine-ladened bandoliers away from your sweat-soaked shirt. Lay that silent weapon down and step out of the heat. Feel the soothing cool breeze right down to your soul ... and rest forever in the shade of our love, brother.

From your Nam-Band-Of-Brothers