THE WALL OF FACES

We grew up neighbors and good friends until you moved. A few years younger, I idolized you and Teddy. I still remember our back yard camp outs and the Igloo we made one winter. We met and spoke just days before I left for Vietnam myself. My Dad wrote me when you were KIA.

Dear PFC William Thomas, Thank you for your service as an Infantryman. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. It is another summer. Time passes quickly. Please watch over America, it still needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

Thank you for your service to our country so long ago sir. The remembrance from your cousin Maggie is beautiful and attests to her love for you. As long as you are remembered you will always be with us.

Dear PFC William Arthur Thomas Jr, sir

As an American, I would like to thank you for your service and for your sacrifice made on behalf of our wonderful country. The youth of today could gain much by learning of heroes such as yourself, men and women whose courage and heart can never be questioned.

May God allow you to read this, and may He allow me to someday shake your hand when I get to Heaven to personally thank you. May he also allow my father to find you and shake your hand now to say thank you; for America, and for those who love you.

With respect, and the best salute a civilian can muster for you, Sir

Curt Carter

In this family, we call himTommy, although he became Bill as he entered high school. He was handsome, charming, hysterically funny, an accomplished athlete, and the classic ladies' man....yes, even in his early years as he challenged the adult world he was thrown into way too soon, he was an old soul.
There were so many tears shed for him, but he was oblivious to that part of the war...the part where an only child has the opportunity to avoid combat, but chooses to fight with everyone else. The part he didn't see, where the family and friends, most of all his mom and dad, who lost so much forever when he died, felt their hearts broken forever.
At a time when young people were rushed through Basic Training in a few weeks and dropped (literally) into the deadly Viet Nam jungles, Tommy stayed true to his ultra patriotic love of his country, above all else. His last letters showed a very young man heart broken because of the news he constantly heard about his country back home fighting another battle, a battle to bring him home and end this insane inferno of loss and pain. He didn't live long with so little training as he struggled through those steamy dark and fearsome jungles, but he died violently oblivious to the fact that the future would prove his death a death that should not have happened, to the fact that his parents' hearts would break and stay broken until they couldn't suffer their pain anymore. Sometimes I think if he did survive the battles, would he have been able to know that the Viet Nam war would go down in our darkest pages as a huge and violently painful mistake....or would he have become a changed man, a man who may have been a powerful leader in life? Would he have come home and would he have been overwhelmed with sadness and frustration? Would his heart be broken by the whole VN disaster? I know full well he would have been an amazing husband and father and successful in his chosen path, but would he have been happy when all was said and done? His passion was always the Civil War and now we also see through the patriotic pages of our history books that truth come through. Another war that has been rewritten to help us see another sad event of so much suffering and loss. The greatest loss in any war are the young men and women who enter the battlefield with the deep love of their country, the unconditional commitment to do whatever it takes to protect their families and the relentless strength to suffer anything that is put to them to carry forth America's foundation of patriotic love and belief in democracy and opportunity.

Sadly, in the end, like so many, Tommy died; he died carrying his dream. His dream was to prevent loss in all its forms, alleviate the pain of the helpless and the innocent,, provide a stronghold against governmental tyranny, and most of all, the most powerful gift, to protect democracy and the love we all share for the United States of America.

The gift for Tommy is that he carried this with him to his grave and he stands before us as the greatest symbol of what we all should fight for, every day and in every way: the love of family, our country, its people, its democracy and its flag. Some may say that is a lot of hooey, sentimental dribble, but as recent history shows us, each tragic national event takes every one of us back to that place where we turn and smile at strangers, help in anyway we can, and take that beautiful flag that Tommy loved and died for and wave it in every corner of our lives. Tommy died for that. They all died for that and the shame we carry now is that his passion allowed us to take it all for granted knowing that there are Tommys out there fighting and dying to protect us all in too places and for too many days..

Thank you, Tommy....your life and death lifts us up every day.