THE WALL OF FACES

Picture of Thomas Ackerman. To see the rest of his profile from the New Jersey Vietnam Veterans' Memorial Foundation please visit www.njvvmf.org.

My mom lived right down the street from you. I came home in 8th grade and asked if she knew anyone from the Vietnam War. She said yes and that is how I found you.

I am so thankful for what you did and you will always be in my heart

Thomas is buried at Laurel Grove Cemetery in Totowa Boro,NJ. BSM PH

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

Tom;
I was a year behind you in Manchester Regional HS and a Marine in Vietnam when you were killed. Few people know this: A HS teacher announced your death to the class but was confused and used my name by accident. Several days passed before my parents found out that there was a mistaken idenity. It put my Dad right in the hospital overnight.

One day in Nam I hooked up with 3 of your classmates, (Rich Earnshaw, Billy Eaves and Rich Jarkarski). Wish you could have been there too.
We miss you and you will never be forgottten.