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

You were so young to give your life up for us. You were my cousin but were more like a brother. We were brothers in the same war. You were wounded two seperate times for your country. Significate wounds and decorations for your courage and service. You re-enlisted to serve in South Vietnam. That was the terms of you re-enlistment. Many would not serve when called on, many dodged what you re-enlisted for. You should have a place at the highest, I am sure.
You set the bar many to follow as you did for me. I will always remember you. You gave more than most and you gave your all.
You were my cousin. You were my brother. We grew up together and we served in the same war.
May peace be with you as you sleep in Christ. May the paradise in heaven be yours in your next life. I hope to be your brother again.

My name is Jesse MacDonald, and I am a senior in Gridley High School, in Gridley, Illinois. As part of the Gridley High School posting project, I would like to take this time to show my pride for the fighting men of this country, past and present. You may not have agreed with this war. You may have hated the idea that the country became involved in it at all. But when your country called, you put aside your personal feelings and answered the call, completely selflessly, and gave your life for her. You sacrificed your life for me, sir, and the rest of my family, friends, and my nation. Your family can rest assured, sir, that you may be gone, but you will never, never be forgotten.

They shall grow not old, as we that are left grow old; Age shall not weary them, nor the years condemn. At the going down of the sun and in the morning We will remember them.