Thank you, Blessings2You, for starting this thread . . . you can find Gary on the virtual wall here: http://www.virtualwall.org/dw/WhippleGE01a.htm

I finally got to touch my brother's name on The Wall in D.C. in 2005 . . .

Terry, honorman of his Marine platoon at his graduation from boot camp, was 6'7" tall, handsome, kind and friendly, loved by the girls (seven of them at his funeral, all I believe thought they were the one he would come home to), and very athletic. He could dunk the basketball in his combat boots in the mucky mud of his camp in the jungle in Vietnam. In spite of his height being in excess of standard, he wanted to be and was a tank driver, somehow telescoping his entire 79" into the driver's seat of his tank. Only the top gunner got off when the tank hit a land mine . . . and Terry died instantly, shortly after turning 20 . . .