I think of him often. Always on his birthday and the day he was killed.
Mr. Ferry, you are doing serious damage to my view that all Lawyers are just inhumane, hardhearted, ambulance chasing Sharks, looking for their next victim. That is a very touching story. Thank You
Truly touching story, thank you for sharing it.
Joseph, Thanks for serving and bringing him home, and most of all , , . remembering.
Bump.
Good Bless you Joe, and may God Bless… Lawrence Michael Sullivan!
http://www.vvmf.org/index.cfm?SectionID=110&anClip=52374
I brought him home!
Posted for: LAWRENCE MICHAEL SULLIVAN:
I was Escort Officer for Lt. Sullivan and brought his body home to Memphis in the fall of 1970. I had forgotten his name but remembered that he was an Artillery Officer, like me, and, like me, an OCS graduate. I could tell from his date of rank, April 15, 1969, that he was in the OCS class just ahead of mine.
I wrote away to Ft. Sill for a list of OCS graduates in 1969 and, comparing the list with the list of casualties on this site, I was able to determine that it was Lt. Sullivan whose body I had escorted home.
I’m sure that I was chosen Escort Officer at random but it struck me as fitting that the two of us would have those things in common.
I will always remember the sadness of his funeral. His parents had been divorced and his father, a senior NCO - an SFC, I believe - stood away from the knot of mourners surrounding the grave. His mom, not surprisingly, was inconsolable and I recall how inadequate my remarks to her were when I presented her with the folded American flag that had draped his casket.
When the service had ended and the mourners had drifted away, I saw his father approach the open grave, come to attention and snap the smartest salute to his son that I had ever seen before or, likely, will ever see.
The scene is indelibly etched in my memory and I am so grateful to have witnessed it.
Godspeed, Michael! I’m happy to have found you, again.
Posted by: Joseph A. Ferry, 1LT, FA, US Army
Email:
Relationship: Other:
Monday, June 17, 2002
thank you for sharing Mr Ferry. And i salute you for keeping his memory alive and for serving.
Joe, Thank you for your service & for bringing home one of our finest and remembering him. May God Bless you and May God Bless the family of Lawrence Michael Sullivan.
R.I.P. Lawrence Michael Sullivan.
Thank you Joe for your service and memories.
Thank you Joe, your story of humanity is a welcome one during very difficult time for familys everywhere.
I am just happy that his family did not have to pay for his injuries!
Obama mulls making vets foot bill for service injuries
[FONT=Arial]By David Goldstein[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]McCLATCHY NEWSPAPERS[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Updated: March 17, 2009, 9:13 AM / 3 comments [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Story tools: [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]WASHINGTON—The Obama administration is considering making veterans use private insurance to pay for treatment of combat and service-related injuries. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The plan would be an about-face on what veterans believe is a long-standing pledge to pay for health care costs that result from ***their military service. ***[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]But in a White House meeting Monday, veterans groups apparently failed to persuade President Obama to ***take the plan off the table. ***[/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]“Veterans of all generations agree that this proposal is bad for the country and bad for veterans,” said Paul Rieckhoff, executive director of Iraq and Afghanistan Veterans of America. “If the president and the OMB [Office of Management and Budget] want to cut costs, they can start at AIG, not the VA.” [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Under current policy, veterans are responsible for health care costs that are unrelated to their military service. Exceptions in some cases can be made for veterans who do not have private insurance or are 100 percent disabled. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The president spoke Monday at the Department of Veterans Affairs to commemorate its 20th anniversary and said he hopes to increase funding by $25 billion over the next five years. [/FONT]
- [FONT=Arial]But he said nothing about the plan to bill private insurers for service-related medical care. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Few details about the plan have been available, and a VA spokesman did not provide additional information. But the reaction on Capitol Hill to the idea has been swift and harsh. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]“Dead on arrival” is how Democratic Sen. Patty Murray of Washington described the idea. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]“ . . . when our troops are injured while serving our country, we should take care of those injuries completely,” Murray, a member of the Senate Veterans Affairs Committee, told a hearing last week. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Secretary of Veterans Affairs Eric Shinseki said at the same hearing that the plan was “a consideration.” He also acknowledged that the VA’s proposed budget for next year included it as a way to increase revenue. But he told the committee that “a final decision hasn’t been made yet.” [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]For veterans, that was little comfort. [/FONT]
- [FONT=Arial]Veterans claim that the costs of ***treating *expensive war injuries could raise their insurance costs, as well as those for their employers. [/FONT]
- [FONT=Arial]Some worried that it also could make it more difficult for disabled veterans to find work. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]The leaders of several veterans groups had written Obama last month complaining about the new plan. [/FONT]
- [FONT=Arial]“There is simply no logical explanation for billing a veteran’s personal insurance for care that the VA has a responsibility to provide,” they wrote. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Many veterans had high expectations for Obama after years of battling the Bush administration over benefit cuts and medical concerns such as post-traumatic stress disorder. [/FONT]
- [FONT=Arial]But the VA’s decision to float a potential change in its policy of paying for service-related injuries could signal a quick end to the honeymoon. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]“It’s a betrayal,” said Joe Violante, legislative director of Disabled American Veterans, which signed the letter to Obama. “My insurance company didn’t send me to Vietnam, my government did. [/FONT]
- [FONT=Arial]The same holds true for men and women now fighting in Iraq and Afghanistan. It’s the government’s responsibility.” [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Meanwhile, a new poll by the independent Pew Research Center for the People & the Press has found Obama’s approval rating falling to 59 percent from 64 percent in February. [/FONT]
- [FONT=Arial]It also found the ranks of Americans who disapprove of his job performance rising, to 26 percent from 17 percent. [/FONT]
[FONT=Arial]Pew found that 44 percent think that the president listens more to liberals than to moderates in his party, while 30 percent think he listens more to moderates. In January, 44 percent thought he listened more to moderates and 34 percent more to liberals.[/FONT]
Bump.
I feel that same kind of feeling when an inspector dies. Kenneth Lott just passed and for a guy I never knew it still brought sorrow to me. I don’t know why, it just did. It’s almost like a connection without ever being connected. Makes me sit and ponder on how fragile life really is and that everything you know can turn in an instant.
Thanks for the story it just makes me stop for a second, take a deep breath and smile at how God has blessed me. Although a sad story, your remeberance of him means his not forgotten and now a small piece of him is within me.
Thanks! Joe, and THANK YOU for your service.
USMC 1964-1970
Scout / Sniper in Vietnam 1968-1970
Was in Hue, Phu Bai, Khe Sahn
Can’t remember all the friends I lost
REST IN PEACE KEN… YOU HAVE EARNED IT.
FOREVER REMEMBERED
“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.
From your Nam-Band-Of-Brothers
Posted by: Bill Nelson
Quote:
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.
End Quote:
A NATIVE AMERICAN PRAYER
Quote:
It is said a man hasn’t died as long as he is remembered. This prayer is a way for families, friends and fellow veterans to remember our fallen brothers and sisters.
Do not stand at my grave and weep I am not there, I do not sleep. I am a thousand winds that blow, I am the diamond glints on snow. I am the sunlight on ripened grain, I am the gentle autumn rain. When you awaken in the morning hush, I am the swift, uplifting rush of quiet birds in circled flight, I am the stars that shine at night. Do not stand at my grave and cry, I am not there, I did not die.
End Quote:
Posted by: Chris Spencer
Bump.
Happy Birthday, Mike. He’d be 66, today.
Joe,
I visit the wall everyday.
Semper Fi!!