THE WALL OF FACES

Dear SFC Robert O'Hara, Thank you for your service as ab UH-1 Helicopter Repairman. I researched you on your 52nd anniversary, sad. I am glad you were identified in 2000, welcome home. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. Presidents’, and Valentine’s Days just passed, and Lent has begun. Time passes quickly. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

I still have my bracelet I wore for many years of Robert O’Hara. Said many prayers for him. I live in Kenosha Wisconsin. My grandson Jared went to Northern Iowa University and for many years he and his wife Natalie were teachers in Newell Iowa. So sorry he never returned.

With the passing of Sen. John McCain, it dawned on me that I still have my POW/MIA bracelet and I never knew what happened to him. Thank you for this organization to help us remember and learn about our heroes. In 1969, I was 11 and I used my babysitting money to purchase my bracelet.

As a pre-teen, I was terribly proud to wear the MIA bracelet of
my special hero - SP5 Robert O'Hara 2-6-69.
I memorized his info, prayed, listened, watched, and waited - for years. Finally, I know the truth. Though the account of how he and his fellow soldiers died is heartbreaking, I'm thankful he was finally identified and returned home to be laid to rest. Thank you, Sir, for your sacrifice....I am sincerely and eternally grateful....

I wore Robert's MIA bracelet forever until one day it broke in the middle. I put it away and somehow with all the ups and downs of my life, I lost it. When I realized I no longer had it, my heart was broken. Robert is exactly two months older than me. I decided when I got his bracelet and learned a little about him from a letter I received from his sister, I would name a child of mine for him. Until recently, I thought his name was Robert Michael. I couldn't give my son his first name because I had dated a Robert and my husband is very jealous of this man so I gave my second son his middle name of Michael although I spelled it Mychael. I lost track of his birth family--mostly my fault.

When I learned his remains had been, after all this time, located, I was sad that he would not have the children or spouse of his heart or to watch those children grow, marry, and have children of their own.

I continue to battle, as I did 50 years ago, with the necessity of war even as I sent my son to Iraq twice.