"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, though you may or
may not have always. Take 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 Davis O'Donnell
1 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam
Listed as KIA February 7, 1978
 |
TOMMY HOLLAND
Warren M. Dawson
James Edwards Kidd
 |
JOHN MCCLESKEY
Wilbur Blair Nall
Edward Hamilton
Larry Knuth KIA Vietnam
Edward Holmes Overstreet
Jerry Stiles
|
Thad Oxford
Clifford "Pat" Collins |
|
!st John was a friend and a leader. It was my honor to be selected by him to be on "B" Company's Crack Squad.
ReplyDeleteI met John with his wife at Andersonville several months before he passed. He was then as always the man among men.
After the fact: He was the "mad bomber" of Vincent Hall. He had learned to use a cigarette
with a Cherry Bomb, exploded in a trash can to cause Major Ragan to have us stand until one would confess. I'm not confessing, yet this comes from a very reliable source. No one ever confessed...even now!
Da Buffalo Stafford
Tommy was a "town boy", yet he was always a product of GMC. I remember him a young man with
ReplyDeletegreat looks that all the females would chase after. He was despite this...a leader as was proven in Vietnam.
John McClesky, great friend. He led the Battle Group Crack Drill Team I was on, along with Thad Oxford, both gone. John and I spent some time together during the summers. He was from Americus, Ga. and I was from Albany, 30 miles apart.
ReplyDeleteThad was from Pelham,Ga and we shot dove and quail when we had a chance. Thad's father, Major Oxford was my algebra teacher...when he was awake.
My first 3 hours on campus, I was in my room on 3rd floor of Vinson Hall, when this short rabbit with stripes from his elbow to his neck came in to tell me my radio was too loud. Two "striking in appearance" officers came in to break up the fight. One was George Coletti, now a dentist in Stone Mountain, Ga. and the other sat down with me to tell me what it was going to take for me to get along and fit in at GMC. That if I needed help with anything to call on him...Larry Knuth. Also gone but not forgotten. Bill Humber Marietta, Ga. ilj@comcast.net