THE WALL OF FACES

"Alas the tragic laughter of the early wise."

Homely, lanky, lonely
born all by himself
to the red clay of Georgia

Southern intellectual
meant by the God of Moses
to write fiction became instead
the biggest comet that ever missed Earth

He tried friendship
none of us were up to him
he tried booze
he tried marijuana & music
he tried Viet Nam
he tried em all at once
death worked

I never served but the Viet Nam War left a very deep wound I feel today almost as sharply as I did that October day I got the news. He was the rarest individual I have ever known. At age 26 he was set to become the Ernest Hemingway and Wilfred Owen of that dismal epoch. His prose skills were rapidly coming up to that and in one of his letters to me, his best friend from high school, he made me his literary heir, recipient in case of death to all he was writing from and about the war. I expected to get a very thick package. Alas, for all KIAs I am told written materials for security reasons were destroyed before their effects were sent to their nearest. And so his fruit was erased. He was early wise, prone to cynicism, had a very realistic view of the world and of politics for one so young. I venture he was the best read of his generation. Two literary models I thought would have been Faulkner and O'Connor. His artistic sources were Joyce and Proust. Favorite Shakespeare was Prince Hal and friend. I once told him he resembled Caldwell (because of his Georgia settings) and he sounded offended. His personality, at first very shy, would with familiarity become so strong and colorful, his sense of humor so powerful and so difficult to imitate that he was already virtually a cult among a dozen friends. He was born and grew up in McRae, Ga., attended Carlisle Academy in S.C., Woodrow Wilson H. Sch. in Washington, D.C. where I knew him, and where his dad Raymond was stateside in the foreign service. His dad's posting took him to Mexico as a teen (a country he hated), and Germany as a college sophomore and junior? at the Univ. of Maryland extension in Munich (a place he adored). He graduated at College Park as a poli sci major and English minor (if memory serves), got drafted, went AWOL for a time in protest to the war, turned himself in, and was sent into combat infantry before (as he told me) he had even qualified on an A16. However, he was eager to go in the end, eager to match his dad who had a combat record in the Navy from WWII, and eager to be the next Hemingway. Unfortunately, this soul truly has not been replaced.

Dear PFC Lovett Lee Harrell, 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, and the best salute a civilian can muster for you, Sir

Curt Carter

Lovett is buried at Oak Grove Cemetery, McRae,GA, 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 and patriots 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