THE WALL OF FACES

Dear CPL Edward Allen Clarke, 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, Sir

Curt Carter

Edward is buried at Grove Methodist Church Cemetery in Grove,PA. BSM PH

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

COUNTY SOLDIER
DIES IN ACTION
IN VIETNAM FRONT

A 21-year-old Downingtown area GI was killed in action in Vietnam May 13 when enemy forces attacked his artillery position near the Demilitarized Zone (DMZ).
Dead is Cpl. Edward Allen Clarke of 620 Overlook dr., Bradford Hills, Downingtown. He was the son of James L. and Beatrice Nichols Clarke.
Cpl. Clarke had attended Henderson High School and was employed by the A&P store in Downingtown prior to entering the Army about 13 months ago. He had been stationed in Vietnam since last November.
The Department of Defense said Cpl. Clarke was killed at his artillery firing position when the area came under attack by hostile forces. He was a gun crew chief on a 105-millimeter Howitzer attached to the 2nd Battalion, 319th Artillery, 101st Airborne Division.
Cpl. Clark's father said his son had written his last letter home on May 7. The family received it May 12.
"Hi there." the soldier wrote. "There's not much going on here except that we are supposed to move into the A Shau Valley tomorrow."
He told his family to watch the papers for news of his unit which was soon to be renamed. It had been involved in some of the fiercest fighting to date in the Vietnam War.
Mr. Clarke said his son had been stationed on a fire base atop a mountain about 15 miles south of the DMZ almost since his arrival in Vietnam. He left the United States on Thanksgiving Day.
"He gave the impression that he was lonesome," the soldier's father said, "He had been in about the same spot for almost six months and I guess the isolation bothered him."
The father said Cpl. Clarke had hoped to get to Hawaii soon on a Rest and Recuperation leave. There he had planned to meet his fiance, Deidre Collins Styer of Downingtown, and it was there that the young couple planned to marry.
Mr. Clarke said his son wanted to get married before he left for the war zone, but the family had advised him against it. "We always had the feeling he wasn't going to come home," Mr. Clarke said, although his son had been included in a group of four candidates selected from the ranks to return to Washington for an Army convention. Only one was selected.
"He always wrote as if he was living in another world," the father said, "and would begin his letters with 'How is everything back in the world?'"
The last letter home did not begin that way. And in closing the soldier signed off with "bye, bye," a phrase he had never used before, the father said.
Cpl. Clarke was born in Coatesville, but had lived at Bradford Hills for 16 years.
In addition to his parents, he is survived by his maternal grandparents, Mr. and Mrs. Alfred Nichols of Downingtown; his paternal grandmother, Mrs. Mary Klunk Clarke of Coatesville; a brother, James LeRoy, at home, and a sister, Diane, wife of Richard Mercer of Marshallton.
Funeral services will be announced later, pending word from the Defense Department regarding the return of the soldier's body to the United States.

For one of my classes, I am writing remembrances for those who don't have remembrances. I think that every person that helped give their life for our country should be remembered. Edward has helped defend my freedom and I would just like to take this opportunity to thank him. Even though I never knew him, he will still have a special place in my heart.
Sincerely,
Kelsey Zehr