Vietnam Memorial

It’s a little out of the way, but the Vietnam Memorial is worth the hike (even on a sleety Saturday shuffle past the Monument and Reflecting Pool).

I had seen pictures of it before, but the design of the wall really surprised me. The marble slabs are built into a valley cut down from the ground level, and the footpath that runs along side them gently dips down until the center slab stands at about 6-7 feet tall.

There are so many names.

You want to stop at every single one; think and imagine that person’s life and the grief of the family. If each letter of their names reflects just one, singular happy moment of their life, then the wall is filled with millions of memories.

But you can’t. The letters begin to fly past; they move faster and faster and eventually blur together into a panic of lines and curves. They become nothing.

And when you finally reach the end of the wall then the guilt of not recognizing each and every single name catches up with you. These are not people to be passed over.

There was a family making an etching off one of the slabs. There, huddled on their knees in the wind and sleet of an unforgiving D.C. bluster, was a family who may have traveled a very long way just to see one of those names.

It’s a shame we do not erect a slab for each of them.