THE WALL OF FACES

As we celebrate a New Year and the remembrance of your birthday, I pray that your remains are returned.

You are not forgotten.

Staff Sergeant Herndon Arrington Bivens, Served with the Security Platoon, Headquarters and Headquarters Company, 52nd Aviation Battalion, 17th Aviation Group, 1st Aviation Brigade, United States Army Vietnam.

There’s not been a year since your missing that I don’t think of you.

I wore your bracelet during my senior year of high school. I was told that, if, or when the person came back, we were to break the bracelet and send it to him. I remember checking the newspaper everyday for your name. It never appeared. Many years later, I took my son to Washington, D.C. to visit the Vietnam Memorial Wall. I left it the bracelet on the ground in front of the panel that bears your name.

At age 15 I purchased a copper bracelet for $10 to support the cause. That was a lot of money for me back then but I babysat to earn it. I chose Sgt. Bivens because he was the lowest rank of all the bracelets available. The bracelet was worn until The late 1980's when I found out that Sgt. Bivens was indeed KIA. A letter was forwarded by the POW/MIA organization along with the bracelet to Mr. Biven's family. I lost friends in that war that I barely knew. Their absence is still in my heart and the tears that I still shed. When I think of them my mind always returns to the young girl from Charleston, SC who protested the War that killed our young men. My heartflet love and respect for all those who faught. You left our country as young boys but died as men.