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PLEASE PING THIS for the family. The responses are to be printed out and sent to the family.

God Bless Randall and his family. We salute his heroism..and are heartbroken at his death. He is a hero.. and the COWARDS who flew a white flag are the lowest of low.

Prayers for his family and friends.

I'm posting a couple poems that I thought of with Randalls sacrafice.

God Bless, Vets Husband and Wife/Art and Mary Ann

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THE YOUNG DEAD SOLDIERS

The young dead soldiers do not speak,
Nevertheless they are heard in the still house.
Who has not heard them?
They say: whether our lives and our death were for
Peace and new hope, or for nothing.
We cannot say: it is you who must say this.
They say: we leave you our deaths.
Give them their meaning.
We were young, they say.
We have died. Remember us.

Archebald Macleish

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NO, FREEDOM ISN'T FREE

I watched the flag pass by one day.
It fluttered in the breeze.
A young Marine saluted it,
And then he stood at ease.
I looked at him in uniform
So young, so tall, so proud,
With hair cut square and eyes alert
He'd stand out in any crowd.
I thought how many men like him
Had fallen through the years.
How many died on foreign soil?
How many mothers' tears?
How many pilots' planes shot down?
How many died at sea?
How many foxholes were soldiers' graves?
No, freedom isn't free.

I heard the sound of taps one night,
When everything was still
I listened to the bugler play
And felt a sudden chill.
I wondered just how many times
That taps had meant "Amen,"
When a flag had draped a coffin
Of a brother or a friend.
I thought of all the children,
Of the mothers and the wives,
Of fathers, sons and husbands
With interrupted lives.
I thought about a graveyard
At the bottom of the sea
Of unmarked graves in Arlington.
No, freedom isn't free.

Author Unknown

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I AM A SOLDIER

I am a soldier. My blood permeates the soil of many countries.

I have gasped my last breath on many a desolate stretch of beach.
For you . . . all of you, the children who play in the parks,
the mothers who watch over them, the fathers who struggle to sustain them.

There are those here who have belittled and reviled me,
who have made a mockery of me and what I stand for.
You, also, have I suffered and died for.
I withstood heat, insects and disease
so the right to dissent would be yours.

I endured the pain and terror of battle and the maiming of my body
to ensure that you might worship as you please.
I died in agony in order that you, no matter who or what you are,
have the freedom to choose your own destinies.

And I would do it again.
Because I believe in the ideals that made this country what it is today . . . free.
I love her with a deep and abiding love that transcends mere physical pain.

I am a soldier.
Pray that I will always be there,
for if I disappear from this country,
so will you.

Author Unknown
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IN FLANDERS FIELD

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.

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.

John McCrae

Father Of Fallen Marine Had Just Returned From Deployment

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 Davis O'Donnell
01 January 1970
Dak To, Vietnam

Missing In Action
24 March 1970
Cambodia

Prayers for the family . . .