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

Fred and I were assigned to CCN, a MACVSOG unit in Da Nang. On May 9, 1969, there was a recon team on a training mission that needed to be extracted. I was supposed to ride the lead helicopter to drop ropes through the jungle canopy to the team below so we could lift them out. Freddy was supposed to be in the second chopper, but as we were about to leave base camp, he insisted that we trade places because I was due to rotate back to the States shortly. Freddy said I was too "short" to take the chance of riding the lead bird. I remember watching from above as his helicopter began to hover above the team when for no apparent reason the H-34 simply lost altitude and crashed into the jungle, bursting into flames. I learned later that day that Fred survived the crash, only to die when being extracted from the crash site by another helicopter which lost a tail rotor. I think about Fred every day and wish he was here.

Frederick is buried at Gettysburg Nat Military Park.

May God hold you in his hands and angels comfort you

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

Isaiah 6:8