THE WALL OF FACES

"An God said who shall we send.I answered I am here,send me."

Isaiah 6:8

"To what avail the plow or sail
or land or life if freedom fail"?

George, glad to know you finally made it home. Welcome back brother. There is not a more special place in the world than where you now rest. You're just 6 weeks younger than me. We'll meet up sometime, George. And I look forward to it. I'll fly my flag in your honor tomorrow and on your birthday, too.

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

The following article appeared in the 19 May 2006 online edition of The Washington Post:


After a 38-Year Wait, An Etching on the Wall
4 Names Join Vietnam Veterans Memorial

By Sue Anne Pressley Montes
Washington Post Staff Writer


Everyone else knew him as "Red," because of his flaming hair. But at home, he was always "Bobby," his family said. And he was a good, big brother.

Robert Patrick Rumley Jr. died at age 25 on May 18, 1968, from wounds he suffered as a Marine captain in Vietnam. But it took exactly 38 years -- and the determined efforts of his siblings -- to get his name etched on the black granite expanse of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

"Obviously, this means a great sense of closure -- it's like having a wound heal properly," said his brother, Mark Rumley, 53, of Boston as he stood next to the Wall yesterday. "But more than that, I think it's best described as an affirmation of the truth about our brother's sacrifice. And he's finally taking his place with his comrades."

Four names, including Rumley's, were added this week to the monument in what has become nearly an annual ritual. Almost every year at this time, just before Memorial Day, a few more names are inscribed after approval by the Department of Defense, said Lisa Gough, spokeswoman for the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Fund. The names are usually etched in whatever empty spaces are available, she said, and placed as close as possible to others with the same casualty dates. In most instances, these names were not included when the Wall was erected in 1982 because of lost medical records, other missing documents or some other oversight.

Often, as in Rumley's case, it is the relatives who end up making the appeal. For years, his family was troubled that the name of their beloved son and brother was not on the Wall. They were never sure why not. Rumley died 20 months after the helicopter he was riding in was shot down by enemy fire, and he never recovered from his wounds. His parents, who have since died, were so devastated by his death that they did not have the heart to pursue the matter, Mark Rumley said.

But a few years ago, Bobby Rumley's siblings decided to take up the cause.

"It was certainly a cumbersome process," said Mark Rumley, a lawyer. "There's no real road map. We had to file three different petitions dealing with medical records and military records."

But all that was behind them yesterday as he and two brothers, Michael, 62, and Jon, 45, also of Boston, leaned forward to watch as stonecutter Jim Lee carefully etched "Robert P. Rumley Jr." into the granite.

Others included this week were Army Specialist Bobby Gene Barbre of Carmi, Illinois; Marine Lance Corporal George Bryant Givens Jr. of Robards, Kentucky.; and Marine Pfc. Hans Jorg Rudolph Lorenz of Midland, Ontario, Canada.

The additions, which will become official when they are read at a Memorial Day ceremony May 29, bring the number of names on the Wall to 58,253.

"Every name is special," said Lee, of Great Panes Glassworks Inc. in Denver, which has etched several hundred names on the Wall since 1986. "Every name added further completes the memorial."

The years seemed to fade away as the Rumley brothers remembered Bobby, the oldest son. "There was no back step in his personality. If he began something, he'd see it through," said Mark Rumley, who was 15 when his brother died. "It's a bittersweet thing. It seems like I'm 15 again today, and I'm not."

After graduating from Boston College in 1965 with a business degree, Bobby Rumley joined the Marines and went to Vietnam in the spring of 1966. He was platoon commander on Sept. 2, 1966, when the Viet Cong began firing mortar rounds at the Chinook helicopter he was in. In a tribute recently written for the family, one of the men in his platoon, Ernest "Doc" Ellis, described Rumley as "an intense fighter" who "never surrendered to his injuries," even as guerrilla fighters got within 10 meters of him.

"He remained calm, cool, collected, and always in command," Ellis wrote. " . . . He answered his country's call to arms and forged his answer with honor, courage, and patriotism."

As tourists milled about them yesterday, the Rumley brothers watched Lee do his work, a painstaking technique that takes only about 10 minutes but requires careful attention to stroke and depth to match the other names.

They will be back soon, the brothers say, for the Memorial Day program, along with about 30 relatives. But before they left yesterday, they stepped forward to do what so many visitors to the memorial do.

With tears in their eyes, they each took pencil and paper and made a rubbing of their brother's name.

Do not stand at my grave and weep.
I am not there; I do not sleep.
I am a thousand winds that blow,
I am the diamond glints on snow,
I am the sun on ripened grain,
I am the gentle autumn rain.
When you awaken in the morning's hush
I am the swift uplifting rush
Of quiet birds in circled flight.
I am the soft stars that shine at night.
Do not stand at my grave and cry,
I am not there; I did not die.

Mary Frye – 1932