Voices from a Wall

Today is National Vietnam War Veterans Day.

I have developed a ritual that when I am in DC I try to go down to the National Mall to do two things.

The first is a visit to the Lincoln Memorial. I will stop in front of Old Abe and say my thank to him personally. I will then turn to his right where the Gettysburg Address is etched onto the north wall. I read it, reflect, but pay special attention to the final lines:

“…that from these honored dead we take increased devotion to that cause for which they gave the last full measure of devotion — that we here highly resolve that these dead shall not have died in vain — that this nation, under God, shall have a new birth of freedom — and that government of the people, by the people, for the people, shall not perish from the earth.”

The second is to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial.

The Memorial is so very different than its sibling further to the east, the World War II Memorial. That one, composed of granite pillars and triumphal arches, soars upwards and tells us of a nation’s victory in war. The Vietnam War Memorial, what was denounced as the “black gash in the earth,” reminds us of war’s cost.

My relationship with the Memorial began years ago when I stopped by one winter night on my way to the airport to catch a flight home. The ground lights shone upon the walls, illuminating the names. In the still night air, I could hear a distant hum as if from a power source.

It wasn’t until years later, the next time I was in DC, that I understood where the sound came from. It was another cold winter night, with the same sound, when it struck me like an epiphany that the Memorial was a focal point, a gathering of the memories and voices of those who died and are immortalized on its walls.

When you understand that truth, the Memorial changes. It lives. The names are longer silent but they speak and you can hear them if you want to.

There is a Web site called “The Wall of Faces” which is committed to providing a photo and a short biography for each of the 58,000 names on the Memorial. During my visits I pick names from the walls, in truth the names call to you. You enter the name into the search bar and the person comes alive; there is a real person with a face, a young man who will never grow old.

Then the voices start.

There is a comment section for each of the names. Most are short and from grateful citizens, strangers really.

Then are those who knew the man. A fellow Marine who remembered loading his body on the chopper, another who went looking for him when he didn’t come back from patrol. Then there are the friends from back home, remembering the last night before their buddy shipped out. Yesterday’s visit was a childhood memory of playing in the back fields of rural New Mexico. Another was from a football teammate who played at the high school just down the road from mine. The voices again, now from a different direction, intermingling with those from the walls.

Over the decades people have left hundreds of thousands of artifacts and letters, which are archived and preserved, at the base of the Memorial. With such a large number, many are of course left in full public view. Not all though.

One morning, in the early light of dawn, I saw from a distance a man laying something along the wall of the Memorial. It was clear from his age that he was a contemporary of the Vietnam era. A comrade? A family member? Either way the man intended this to be a private moment and after a few minutes he departed. I went to see what he had left. It was a picture of two men, good friends, in Vietnam. One of those men had just left and the one he came to see will stay until the next time his friend visits.

The Vietnam generation is already passing and in a few decades few will remain, but the names and the voices will always be there.