The 20-year-old Father Judge High School graduate had worked at Amplex Manufacturing Co. on Torresdate Avenue and was engaged to be married when he was drafted into the Army two weeks before Christmas 1967. The specialist four, a cannoneer with the 19th Artillery, 1st Cavalry Division (Airmobile), died near Saigon on Nov. 26, 1968. His parents received many phone calls and letters from men with whom he had served, and for 15 years following his death, his commanding officer sent flowers to be placed on his grave. Ahern was survived by his parents, a brother and sister. He and James P. Harkanson, a Philadelphia veteran who died in February 1968 in Vietnam, had been close friends since they were children.