THE WALL OF FACES

Joel is buried at Bogue Chitto Cemetery, Bogue Chitto, Lincoln County,MS.

Since you were killed 12 days before I was born, I never got to hear you play the guitar or go fishing with you at the lake. I've always been told what a wonderful person you were and heard a lot of stories about you. I've always wondered what our lives would be like if you had made it home.

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 all your "Band of Nam Brothers"

Dear Joel,
I am a student at Gridley High School and for our history class we are posting remembrances for those who fought in the Vietnam War. I want to thank you for all that you did for our nation and its people. God Bless!