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

Mannie is buried at Pleasant Grove Bapt Ch Cem, Mitchell Co, GA.

I am a junior in high school and was assigned some work for extra credit. My teacher served in the Vietnam War and was shocked at the few number of remembrances there were for all these people who gave their lives. So, he challenged each of us to write remembrances for 100 men/women who gave their lives in the Vietnam War. I felt this assignment to be uplifting to the family members of those who lost their lives.

I am now remembering Mannie Alfred Barber who served in the Army and died at the age of 23! Thank you for your bravery and loyalty. You will never be forgotten!