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Casualty Info
Home Town Keokuk
Last Address Keokuk, IA
Casualty Date Feb 09, 1971
Cause KIA-Died of Wounds
Reason Other Explosive Device
Location Quang Ngai (Vietnam)
Conflict Vietnam War
Location of Interment Keokuk National Cemetery (VA) - Keokuk, Iowa
Wall/Plot Coordinates 05W 091/Section E, Site 110-7
John Barnes jbarnes@southmedic.on.ca
Classmate and Viet Nam Vet
9401 Dunkerrin Way Elk Grove Ca, 95758 USA
I won't forget!
Steve, I just visited the Wall Saturday night and looked for you.It was late,dark, foggy, and rainy. I was remembering that last time I saw you. We were both going to basic training, met on 7th street in front of the post office and shared a beer..in the street. What were they going to do? Send us to Viet Nam! I deployed to Viet Nam October 1970 and you followed shortley after that. Mom wrote me that you had been killed and a sense of innocence lost filled me. I deployed again in 1971, 1972, and was on the line January 27th 1973. I just wanted to go home and get on with my life. I knew I was one of the luckey ones of this era, and I swore I would do my best to live my life that others could not have.I hope I accomplished that. When I got back in 1973 I worked at the National Cemetery in Keokuk. While trimming weeds around the white markers lined at attention I found you. I found you again Saturday night. I hope in living I have done what we could to make your scarifice noted. I think you would have gone on to be a great assett to a productive life, a wife, and family. Steve, I wish that could have happened. Thank you for making me a better person. John
Mar 31, 2009
William Wilson wwilson17@gis.net
cousin
24 Parker Road Framingham MA 01702 USA
I still miss you, cousin.
I was in hospital with wounds in Quang Tri when you stepped on the mine. When the Red Cross finally found me, we came back to the world together. We laid you to rest and I went back to Nam, but made it home eventually and have had a full life, that you never got. I still think of you and will visit you at the Wall, 37 years later, when we put my wife's father to rest at Arlington this week. Like you, he was a hero, signing a blank check for up to and including giving his life to his country. Although grievously wounded in France, he made it home and raised a beautiful family. You never got the chance, but you would have been a great father and citizen.
Mar 12, 2008
Manuel Pino Jr mpjr54@msn.com
Fellow Vietnam Vet
NOW SLEEP Peace has come. Now you can truly sleep,my son. The muddy field where you were laid Flag-draped, will now be green. Redbud and cherry blossoms can be seen Soon in bloom above your head. Arlington's Eternal Flame Flickers across granite rows To illuminate your name And then beneath it (with lightning's calm) Strikes in black the word VIETNAM On your own stone. Peace has come. Your medals may turn green In time, like your beret But forever there are those who'll say, "I live because he cared he came!"
Tuesday, August 16, 2005
Francis Kaufman
Just a few words to honor your memory on your birthday for the day you made the supreme sacrifice on February 9th 1971. You will never be forgotten.
Thursday, August 07, 2003
Who Shall We Send
"And God said who shall we send. I answered I am here, send me."
"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
Posted by: Bill Nelson Email: grite@yahoo.com Relationship: NamVet 2/502 Inf 101 Abn 69-70 Tuesday, January 10, 2006
We Remember
Steven is buried at Keokuk Nat Cem
Posted by: Robert Sage Email: rsage@austin.rr.com Relationship: Saturday, November 13, 2004