THE WALL OF FACES

Dear Sgt Dominic Sementelli, Thank you for your service with the 19th Air Tactical Air Support Squadron. I researched you on the 53rd anniversary of the start of your tour. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. It is another new year. Time moves quickly. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

SGT Dominic M. Sementelli Jr. served with the 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron, 504th Tactical Air Support Group, 7th Air Force. While serving in Vietnam, SGT Sementelli was assigned to MACV Advisory Team 47 in An Loc. On March 23, 1969, Sementelli was critically injured while a passenger in jeep after it reportedly struck a tree near Hon Quan in Bien Hoa Provice, RVN. He was transported to the 93rd Evacuation Hospital at Long Binh with internal injuries; he expired two days later. [Taken from coffeltdatabase.org; obituary from The Express (Lock Haven, PA), March 26, 1969, courtesy of Joyce Adgate, Volunteer, Clinton County Historical Society, Lock Haven, PA]

Taken from The Express (Lock Haven, PA), April 3, 1969, courtesy of Joyce Adgate, Volunteer, Clinton County Historical Society, Lock Haven, PA.

He loved us so.
Every day, in a hundred ways, he told us so.
In honesty, in affection, he told us so.
He loved us so.
Every day, in a hundred ways, he showed us so.
With loyalty and bravery, he showed us so.
He was our defender, and he kept us free!
He took an oath to guard us, and fought for liberty!
He loved us so, and we should know.
For we loved him so.
Sergeant Sementelli, you were the very essence of DUTY!...HONOR!...and COUNTRY! You had been there and done that in and over Vietnam! You were one brave man who did brave deeds for our America! You flew and you fought for the right without question or pause! Your name and fame are the BIRTHRIGHT of EVERY American citizen! In your youth and strength...your love and loyalty...you had given all that mortality can give to defend liberty everywhere! Lock Haven is very proud of you! You sacrificed your life so that freedom and justice may live! You had lived up to the code of conduct and chivalry of those who guard this beloved land!...an ideal SO NOBLE that it arouses in all of us a sense of pride, and yet, of humility! I strongly and honestly believe that Avonmore's own Jill Corey, whom I so greatly and so immensely admire as one of my three top favorite songbirds of all time, the other two being Walton-on-Thames's own Julie Andrews, England's musical queen, and London's own Dusty Springfield, another thrush from England, would be very proud of your service to America, and the sacrifices you made to keep our country and us free! Well done, Sergeant! Be thou at peace. AIM HIGH!!!

Sergeant Dominic Michael Sementelli Jr., Served with the 19th Tactical Air Support Squadron, 504th Tactical Air Support Group, 7th Air Force.