Dear bill today is February Thirteenth, nineteen, eighty four: I came to this black wall again to see and touch your name. And as I do, I wonder if anyone ever stops to realise that next to your name on this black wall, is your mother's heart. A heart broken fifteen years ago today you lost your life in Vietnam,. And as I look at your name, William, are stocks

I think of how many many times I used to wonder how scared and homesick you must have been in that strange country, gold, Vietnam, and, if and how it might have changed you. For you were the most happy, You go lucky kid in the world. The ever sad or unhappy. And until the day I die. I will see you as you laugh, Me even when I was very mad at you, and the next thing I knew we were laughing together. But on this pass new year's day I had my answer. I talked by phone to a friend of yours from Michigan who spend your. Last Christmas, in the last four.

One of your life with you, Jim told me how you died. For he was there and saw the helicopter crash, he told me how you had flown your quota and had not been It will to fly that day how the regular pilot. Unable to fly and had been reply, by someone with less experience, how they did not know the exact cause of the crash. How it was either hit by enemy fire, or that get a or something unknown how the blades went through the chopper and hit. You How you lived about a half hour.

Were unconscious and therefore did not suffer. He said how your jobs were like sitting ducks. They would send you men out to draw the enemy into the open and then. Would send in the big guns and planes to take over meantime? came to so many of you. He told me how For while over there A yellow streak, the men got a mean streak down their backs. Each day the street got bigger than the men became meaner, everyone, but. You bill, he said how you stayed the same. Happy go

guy that you were when you arrived in Vietnam. How are you warmth and friendliness drew the guys to you how you lieutenant Gave you the nickname of Spanky ensue your group, Jim included, were all known as spanking gang. How, when you died, It made it so much harder on them, for you were their moral support, then he said how you of all people should never have been the one to die. Oh God, how it hurts to write this. But I must face it and then put to rest. I know that after Jim talk to me, he must have real

Lived it all over again and suffered so before I hung up the phone, I told Jim. I loved him loved him. For just being your close friend,. And for sharing the last days of your life with you and for being there with you when you died, how lucky you were to have him for a friend, Then how lucky was to have had you. Later that same day, I received a phone call from a mother in Billings Montana,. She lost her daughter, her only child a year ago,.

She needed someone to talk to for no one would let her talk about the tragedy. She said she had seen me on television. On new year's Eve, after the Christmas letter, I wrote to you and left it This memorial had drawn newspaper and television attention. She said she had been thinking about me all day. I just had to talk to me. She taught to me of her pain and seemingly needed me to help her with it. Cried with this heartbroken mother and asked. I hung up the phone I live. My head down and cried is hard for her. Here was a mother calling, for help with her pain over the law? Of her child, a groan daughter. And as I sobbed, I thought: how can

help her with her pain when I have never completely been able to cope with my own. They tell me the letters I write to you and leave here, This memorial are waking up Up to the fact that there is still much pain left after all these years, from the view. No more. But this I know. I would rather too had you for twenty one years and but pain that goes with losing you never to have had you at all. Mom.

That was a letter written by MRS Eleanor Wimbush mother of Sergeant William, are Spanky stocks, from Glenn Bernie Maryland, who was killed in action in helicopter crash in Vietnam on February Thirteenth nineteen sixty nine. That letter was one of many. That she has written and places beneath panel, thirty, two where his name is etched into the Vietnam Memorial Wall, along with more than fifty eight thousand other names of our fallen heroes, and I read an interview with Missus Wimbush from

Nineteen. Ninety, in that interview she said when my son died. I wrote my pledge. I said I will not now or ever let people forget so For Missus Wimbush and her son Bill Spanky stocks during this holiday season? Let us all remember. Remember: the service.

Supreme sacrifice of so many and also let us learn some important lessons from Missus Wimbush and from her side, From Missus Wimbush, we learn to be thankful for what we have had even if it is lost, and even if that loss, causes pain, still be thankful. And from her son bill, we can learn that even in the face of horror and death. We can maintain our war and our friendliness and that that war and friendliness can guide

support others can help bolster the spirit of those around you by simply smiling. So as we celebrate the holidays, let us be thankful for we have and like sergeant William Bill. Spanky stocks keeps smiling half a merry Christmas and a happy new year.