THE WALL OF FACES

We were but 54, they were 300-400. Gunfire raged for almost 6 hours. "Spooky" arrived and dropped his flares within 26 minutes of engagement. When daylight finally arrived, we were 46, they were beaten and gone. Nothing more could have been asked of these brave young men. An Army BG even said he was going to award all the Soldiers medal. SSG McMahan died of his wounds at the USAF hospital the next day. I'll never forget him or his last words to me.

He was returning from mid-night chow when we were hit hard. He was unarmed and narrowly evaded two VC who had penitrated our position when he was shot. The docs tried but there was little they could do. I never learned where he was buried. I'll always remember him.

He didn't have to be there. He extended his tour so his brother who was in the Army down in the Delta could go 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 heros 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 heros 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