THE WALL OF FACES

Dear Raymond thank you for serving our country.And I thank your family for letting you fight for freedom to save alot of lives. You are very brave. You have soulpower.You did very good I thank you and thats why I call you The Hero.

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

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

A 20-year-old Holmesburg soldier is the 23rd graduate of Father Judge High School to die in action in Vietnam.
SP4 Raymond Ahern Jr., son of Mr. and Mrs. Raymond Ahern Sr., of 3818 Oak Drive, Holmesburg, was killed Tuesday. A member of the 2nd Battalion, 1st Air Cavalry, he had been in Vietnam for six months.
Ahern, who was graduated from Father Judge in 1965, was drafted on December 12, 1967. He was engaged to Miss Kathleen Reese, 17, of 8022 Frankford Ave.
He is survived by his parents, a brother, Robert, 18, and a sister, Mary Ann, 12.

Photo taken from the Philadelphia Daily News of October 26, 1987. The special supplement entitled, 'SIX HUNDRED AND THIRTY,' was published in conjunction with the dedication of the Philadelphia Viet Nam Memorial.