THE WALL OF FACES

Dear PFC Peter Weidemier, Thank you for your service as a Rifleman. Tomorrow is your 75th birthday, happy birthday. Saying thank you isn't enough, but it is from the heart. Thanksgiving was yesterday. Happy Thanksgiving. Please watch over America, it stills needs your strength, courage, guidance and faithfulness, especially now. Rest in peace with the angels.

Pete and I were in Hanna Boys Center together from 1960 to 1963.
Pete was my best friend. We both sang in the traveling choir and spent many hours just riding bikes, playing Monopoly and hanging out.
Through all my childhood Pete was the best friend I ever had. He was a decent, honest, funny and all around good guy.
I spent years looking for him as an adult only to find out from one of our old Hanna Counselors in 1989 that Pete had sacrificed his life in Vietnam. A year and a half after he perished I was stationed in I Corp in the 101st Abn. Div just a few kilometers from where he had given his life without knowing it. Shortly after finding his name I left the following poem I wrote the night I found his name on our California Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Sacramento in 1989. A few weeks later our Memorial was Vandalized and I, in Pete's name created the California Vietnam Veterans Memorial Watch Association to guard our Memorial 24/7 for 6 months. From June 3, 1989 to Nov. 4, 1989. We stopped the vandalism, and created a group of amazing individuals who are still connected today. We formed Chapter 500 of the Vietnam Veterans of America and it still exists in today overseeing our Memorial and reading the names of those listed every Memorial Day for over twenty years now.
I look forward to the day we meet in Heaven again.

BEST FRIENDS

I can still see your golden hair blowing in the breeze
Your bright blue eyes sparkling with life
Your kind smile happy and free
Sitting under the old oak tree
Pressing our fingers together
Scout knife with just a smidgen of red
Blood mingling, blood brothers til the end
You were my best friend Pete
The very best I ever had
That I never got to see you again
Made my heart very sad
My childhood was really rough, I barely had any joy
You were the very best part of my being a young boy
I can still feel your presence so very deep in my soul
That little bit of your blood I'll carry until I'm old
Farewell for now my friend
I'm sure I'll see you again
As we sit in the palms of God hands
And just like old times, be blood brothers and best friends.

By, Richard Ottis

Private First Class Peter Joseph Weidemier, Served with the 2nd Platoon, Company B, 1st Reconnaissance Battalion, 1st Marine Division, Third Marine Amphibious Force.

I finally found a story of what happened the night my dad was killed. You were with him on that hill. Jeffery Scott Patterson was his name. I thank you for your service and wish you and your family the best. Semper Fi Marine.

Pete was a dear friend during high school and at that time was known as Pete Dean. Those trying to find him by this name (at the wall) will be redirected.
I visited the wall last year over Memorial Day and the emotions after all these years are still so overwhelming. To see so many names of young men and women who will never live out their lives, who were lost to their family and loved ones, is just devastating.
Pete died in the most honorable way, shielding his comrades from harm.
Rest in peace, Pete