Save a Place
If you are able,
save 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,
though you may
or may not have always.
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.
Major Michael David O’Donnel
1 Jan 1970
MIA 24 Mar 1970
Dak To, Vietnam.
Category: Support the troops, War Stories, We Remember
God Bless them all, and may His Angels of Mercy bring solace to those thy left behind.
Amen. Thank You, Veterans, for all the sacrifices made for us.
Spent Sunday at Margraten as a part of the “honor flight” between two Dutch flights honoring the over 8,000 Americans buried there. It’s interesting to know that according to one of the speakers there that day, Margraten is the only US Cemetary abroad where 100% of the graves have been adopted by local families. It was a great ceremony and they truly seemed to care, even showing up on a rainy day in 50 degree weather.
On a side note, Fields of Flanders has always been one of my favorite poems written to remember the fallen. It was written about WWI and goes:
In Flanders fields the poppies blow
Between the crosses, row on row,
That mark our place; and in the sky
The larks, still bravely singing, fly
Scarce heard amid the guns below.
We are the Dead. Short days ago
We lived, felt dawn, saw sunset glow,
Loved and were loved, and now we lie,
In Flanders fields.
My Great Uncle PVT Salvador Cortes never made it home from WWII, so I felt especially proud to have been able to honor him.
Take up our quarrel with the foe:
To you from failing hands we throw
The torch; be yours to hold it high.
If ye break faith with us who die
We shall not sleep, though poppies grow
In Flanders fields.
Huh? Somehow my last line was put in above the last verse of the poem. That might be confusing…
Rest In Peace, God Bless.
Our ranks are growing thinner.
How rapidly time flies.
We’ll hold our last campfire soon
And say our last good-byes.
But dear as life is to us,
Much dearer is our Flag,
Blest emblem of true Freedom
And all that makes life glad.
— Chaplain B. F. Rogers, Feb. 1897, for reunion of his regiment.
Fiddlers Green
Halfway down the trail to Hell,
In a shady meadow green
Are the Souls of all dead troopers camped,
Near a good old-time canteen.
And this eternal resting place
Is known as Fiddlers’ Green.
Marching past, straight through to Hell
The Infantry are seen.
Accompanied by the Engineers,
Artillery and Marines,
For none but the shades of Cavalrymen
Dismount at Fiddlers’ Green.
Though some go curving down the trail
To seek a warmer scene.
No trooper ever gets to Hell
Ere he’s emptied his canteen.
And so rides back to drink again
With friends at Fiddlers’ Green.
And so when man and horse go down
Beneath a saber keen,
Or in a roaring charge of fierce melee
You stop a bullet clean,
And the hostiles come to get your scalp,
Just empty your canteen,
And put your pistol to your head
And go to Fiddlers’ Green.
The Tri-border area around Dak To was highly contested throughout the Vietnam War. Here’s the link to his bio:
http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/o/o021.htm
Streetsweeper, There is one in the following bio who is surely in Fiddler’s Green from the same Dak To AO, only two years later, 1972. We were in communication and not far from Kenneth Yonan by PRC 25 immediately before he was captured.
http://www.pownetwork.org/bios/y/y007.htm
BTW, he was on the 1973 U.S. and NVA list to be returned from captivity, but never was. The NVA supposedly found his bones about 1988 and there are many who still doubt that the ID was correct.
I’m alive today because a UH-1 pilot like Mike O’Donnell flew in to extract my dad’s MACV team that was under fire. Nowhere near as crazy as the action that took the lives of MAJ O’Donnell’s aircrew and RT Pennsylvania, but my father still speaks of the Army aviation community with the reverence of someone who knows every day is a blessing thanks to their heroics.
Flying aluminum cans those Hueys, but the courage exhibited by the vast majority of the men who flew them in Vietnam is beyond humbling.