THE WALL OF FACES

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 heroes 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 heroes 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

Eddie:

I was with you from first grade at Bridge Street School, Gray Avenue and YCHS. I moved away in 65 and lost touch with town. I was with you in Nam in 68, but I was in the Navy and didn't know you were there. Whenever I think my life is getting too hard to handle, I remember how much you've given and how much more life I've been blessed with. I think of you often. Rest in God's hands and welcome home, buddy.

It is said a man hasn't died as long as he is remembered. This prayer is a way for families, friends and fellow veterans to remember our fallen brothers and sisters. 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 sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight, I am the stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die

Thank you so much for your hardwork and dedication. I will always remember doing this for you. Thank you once again for keeping America safe.

Goodbye, America's heroes, we have shamefully failed to stand by you, for all the wrong reasons, which had tempted us aside! Now we must pay the price for letting those who survived down, as well knowing some who didn't have to die have died! We must honor them, every day when we see their names upon the Wall! And from every corner of the land, they answered to the call! Every SOLDIER, sailor, airman, and Marine and Coast Guardsman, too...they all gave their lives so we could live beneath the old Red, White, and Blue. For those who've gone before, we say "WELL DONE! Be thou at peace!" We salute PFC Edward Donald Abbott, USA, whose devotion to DUTY...whose devotion to HONOR...and ABOVE ALL!..whose devotion to GOD and our COUNTRY!...the land that he loved...the Land of the Free and the Home of the Brave...will NEVER...I say again, will NEVER be extinguished from our minds!