THE WALL OF FACES

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

I never knew you but I am grateful for what you did. Because of you I can live in freedom.

I still remember David as a classmate and basketball opponent at Valley Junior High School in Grand Forks. Boy, could he shoot. He and Mark M were formidable opponents in the 9-team 7th grade league. As school went on, David and I went in different directions, and I recall hearing with sadness about his death in Viet Name about the time that the rest of us were graduating that spring of 1969.

David, you are still remembered and admired. You were willing to do what many of our generation were not. May your family who understandably misses you so much even after all these years find comfort in the Everlasting Arms. Thank you for your service.

David it has been 32 years since school. I can see you in my mind like we were just in class together! I will miss you forever.

1999 - You have been gone for thirty years and we still miss you so much - and always will. Love, Mom, Dad and sisters