Reflecting 3,000 - Who else has seen Vietnam Wall in DC?

Who else has seen the actual Vietnam Memorial in Washington DC?  I have, in DC, and the replica Vietnam Wall at the state capitol in Olympia, and the traveling Vietnam memorial replica wall - total of three times over the course of my 55 years. I know everyone who sees the wall is overcome by the sheer numbers of names engraved into the black walls.  I know my experience of visiting the Vietnam Wall in DC was a visceral experience and personal experience for me....a vigil I dreaded to undertake, for it was the first time in my lifetime that  I would see the actual real Wall.

My own history back to that era was firmly in a container with the lid tightly secured and tucked away in the cobwebs in my mental attic.  Popular opinion back in that era was not favorable to returning Vietnam veterans or their families.  It was safer for us as a family then to quickly put it away, leave it behind and try to move on....  

You've heard that expression recently, I'm sure -- get over it and move on.  That was one heard repetitiously after the last Presidential election.  And yet, were it so simple to get over it and move on, would we be in another situation in Iraq not unlike the situation of Vietnam?  I pull the container from my attic, brush off the cobwebs, loosen the lid and let the history wash over me.

I cannot be silent this time, I cannot let young wives and children endure what I endured in silence so long ago.  I have something to say this time and I do, and it resonates with many, I know, I can tell by their reactions and actions.  Others have something to say and it resonates with many, and eventually it will resonate strongly enough that the outcry of no more cannot be missed.  But not yet, not this year, perhaps next year.

The Vietnam Wall Memorial in Washington D.C.

One walks by the first wall which is not so tall and one begins to take in the engraved names.  You then walk to the next wall and the next and the walls grow increasingly higher with more engraved names filling out the growing spaces on the increasingly higher walls.  By the time you are feeling hopelessly overcome and overwhelmed, you look down the length of the wall to see how much further you will have to walk and how many more walls and engraved names you will have to see before you have completed the walk.  As the heighth of the walls reach peak height, the walls then begin decrease in size again until you have reached the last wall and the 'end of the Vietnam conflict' and can now exit the memorial walk of the walls.

That walk registered with me hard as I made that walk, holding my vigil candle, September 2005 in Washington DC.  As I walked the walls, I remember thinking at that time, what will the Iraq memorial look like when it is built and how many names will have to be honored in that memorial.  I remember reflecting back to when I was young and my then husband was drafted and sent to Vietnam.

I was a young military wife, pregnant with our first child, in my first 'real job', marking time anxiously, hoping he would come home alive to participate in the life of our first child - or even wounded and alive, but please, not dead, not killed in action. I felt empathy wash over me as I contemplated the young wives and children of the young men and women deployed in combat today in Iraq and Afghanistan.  I could feel so strongly their youth and the acuteness of loss...how will the new memorial begin to encompass the magnitude of the loss is what was reeling in my mind.  It is so much more than numbers.

What I didn't notice until reading David's story at Washblog was that indeed the Vietnam Wall Memorial is designed to reflect back your own reflection.  It occurs to me how appropriate that symbology was then in Vietnam war era and now in Iraq/Afghanistan era....we are each and every one of us complicit somehow and deep reflection is encumbant on each of us as we memorialize today at this milestone marker that as of today 3,000 U.S. troops have been killed - we go into the new year with that number as a marker.  It is all we have because no other symbology is permitted at this by this Administration.

We have no way to acknowledge, reflect, mourn, honor except for what the civilian community provides in the way of vigils to try to grasp the overwhelming loss, to try to honor what has already been lost, to try to scream attention that the future memorial to honor the war dead in this era already has too many names...

But then today is the day before a new year, and traditional celebrations tonight ought to be a bit muted to reflect that today is also the day our country has reached another milestone in Iraq.  Perhaps when the fireworks are shooting off from the Space Needle in Seattle after an evening of drink, merry-making and celebrating, some will remember to remember that for 3,000 families it is not a celebration.  Rather it marks that our country will move into another new year the same way we did last year - with our  military still in Iraq, adding more names to the future memorial that will mark this time.

Let us reflect and be reminded it is our own reflection we see in the Vietnam memorial - and we see our reflection because we are the living, mourning the dead. Perhaps it will strengthen resolve in each of us who reflect today that with a new year we must act to do something different so that we are not re writing this memorial next new year's eve.

by Lietta Ruger on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 01:13:38 PM PST

•  Thank you for your diary

  To date I have not been able to go.  I could have - but I can't.  Once I went to the movable version when it was in Grant Park in Chicago.  Three days later I began to function.

  by llbear on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 02:39:15 PM PDT

  •  Three days later - the Wall has that affect

    Thank you llbear for posting and somehow, I think, for me, seeing the replica Vietnam Walls helped prepare me somewhat for what I would see when I saw the Vietnam Memorial in DC ... but even so, I don't think even the replica walls can fully prepare one for the DC memorial.   Reactions are strong and as you said, it put you down for three days.

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 02:44:36 PM PDT

•  Thank you for the reminder

  that I need to be more diligent and proactive in my protest of this war.  My first contact with the wall was the one that travelled around the country.  I had no personal relationship with anyone who went to Viet Nam, it only affected me as a horror to be watched each night on the news. I wore the POW bracelet and prayed for that war to end. When I went to view the wall, emotion welled up and the scab on my soul, the one I didn't even know I had, broke off and I sobbed, inconsolate.  The real Memorial is just as powerful and I felt vastly uncomfortable looking at my reflection.  I felt it was screaming back at me.  

  by tobendaro on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 02:53:46 PM PDT

  •  Not sure you need to do more, as much as ask

    others to join you in what you already do in your diligent and proactive protest of Iraq..ask them to be creative and think of things they can do among their own networking communities to be heard.  Thank you for each and every one of your diligent and proactive protest efforts.

    It can be exhausting and empowering work all at the same time.  It is hard for me not to do more than I already do as I have morphed my thinking into each thing I don't do cost another life...that's a bit too much guilt.  Shades of the movie Schindler's List - at the end of the movie when he realizes what more he could have done and didn't do..  

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:09:38 PM PDT

•  The first time

  I saw the movable wall,it literally floored me.

  by mint julep on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 02:55:04 PM PDT

•  Powerful and timely commentary, dyingwarriors.

  Thank you.

  The Vietnam Memorial in DC is one of the most powerful places I ever was privileged to visit.  The presentation and overall feeling of the place is simply one of the most spiritual places in my life of experience.

  I, like you, can no longer be silent.  I have taken my experience in Vietnam and turned that into a force for opposing the current war.  I do what I can to the limits of my ability in terms of sharing my story, supporting those who are coming home, supporting those who suffer loss, and just generally standing in staunch opposition.  

  We have no more children to lose.  We must end this war before any more names are added to the next memorial.

  by possum on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:17:10 PM PDT

•  Several years ago, I went to the Wall with

  my brother who'd served in Nam.  I was the peacenik, he was the helicopter mechanic (and later PsyCorps) back in the late 60's/early 70's.  I live in the DC area so when he visited that first and probably last time, we hit the tourist trail.  For him, we trekked over to the Air and Space Museum; for me, he would go to the Holocaust Museum.   Then, we walked over to see my favorite statue (Einstein) and finally crossed the street to the Vietnam Memorial.

  I've gone many times, touching names of fallen soldiers I didn't know and looking through the many pages of names for kids from my old high school.  The visits are always emotional for me, especially when I see a vet lingering a while-each year a little older, each year a little sadder.  Yet I was unprepared for going to this solemn place with my own brother.

  We'd been close as kids but drifted apart as adults.  Our politics and lives so different from each other, as different as our coloring -- he favors my father's looks and dark hair, I my mother and lighter shades.  He wore a leather coat that day, I'm a vegetarian who avoids leather whenever possible.  We are the opposite with our sameness mostly in our streaks of determination, sense of humor, and unspoken love for each other (in our family, sibling rivalry was encouraged).  We hadn't spoken about Viet Nam the war in years; in fact, I'm not sure if we ever did.

  My brother is the macho kind of guy, he doesn't express emotions like sadness or pain.  He takes after our father that way.  So walking over to the Wall, I didn't expect much outward showing of emotion from him -- in fact, I expected some lousy jokes if anything.  As we turned the corner at the top of one end of the walk, his step falter a little.  I thought he'd just caught his boot on the stone walk.  Looking at the Wall as we went along, I pointed out that the slabs and names are in order of the years of the war, that the MIAs are marked differently.  You know, the usual I'm-the-local, you're-the-tourist nonsense.  About half way down that first side, I looked over at Joe and saw that he'd turned pale as I'd ever seen him.  And I stopped chattering, leaving him to grieve in peace.

  Going slowly up the hill to the end, I pointed to the book where he could look up comrades names and find them on the wall.  He asked for a few minutes alone, went over and started looking through the book.  With the help of the volunteer there, he was at that book for quite a while.  Instead of going back to the Wall though, he came over to me and said he thought it was time to go.  He'd gotten some color back in his face and while quiet, seemed almost peaceful.

  Walking away, I asked if he'd found the names he was looking for.  He replied no, with a half smile.  He'd been looking for his friends from his high school graduating class who had all joined about the same time he had.  "They weren't on the Wall, neither am I," he said, "Guess we all made it back.  I'd rather hold onto that memory for now than the nightmares of that place long ago."

  by edgery on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:17:42 PM PDT

  •  You helped your brother edgery - your story

    caused my tears to run anew..thank you for the comfort you brought to your brother and sharing your story with us.  It often times takes the help of others - few can do it alone.  

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:27:41 PM PDT

    •  thanks

      Joe lives all the way in Perth Australia now.  I miss him even if we are so different.

      by edgery on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 04:20:28 PM PDT

•  Dale Rick Tom and other wash it every year

  They are all Vietnam Vets

  by Janet G on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:18:42 PM PDT

  •  Do they have to get authorization to wash it?

     Can you say more about Vietnam Veterans Dale, Rick, Tom and others who wash the Wall every year?  Does it require permission or authorization, or is this something pubic can do voluntarily?  It sounds like an act of healing to be able to wash the Wall.

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:30:18 PM PDT

    •  They have permits

      You would not believe the site people just joining in to help. Some say God Forgive us other just say nothing.

      by Janet G on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:38:17 PM PDT

•  Dad

  My dad took me to DC a few months after the wall opened. I was still in high school. I think he wanted to instill in me at an early age the horrible costs of war.

  Sigh, if only all fathers taught their sons that lesson.

  by MikeBaseball on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:21:54 PM PDT

•  My last stay in Washington was 14 years; I went..

  to the Wall once.  I found myself dragging my feet and then went along weeping; found some names I knew.  (They were sent, I wasn't.)  I never went back except with out-of-town visitors; I would drive them to the west side, tell them I couldn't park and then go around the corner to pick them up after they had walked through.  I'll never go back.

  by gfv6800 on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:33:06 PM PDT

  •  Once is enough sometimes - such a 'hard' truth

    it can be difficult to stand before such a concrete visual as the Vietnam Wall presents.  What gets argued so carelessly as merely an 'issue' - as a construct for partisan, political football to make their points has so much a deeper meaning in real lives far beyond political issue of the moment

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:46:22 PM PDT

•  I've been to the Wall many times

  in the years since it was dedicated. Most recently, I brought a friend visiting from the UK to see it a couple of months ago.

  We went there after the World War II and Korean War Memorials, and we talked about those wars at some length as we walked among the monuments.

  Because I've been to DC and gone to the Wall so many times, it's hard for me to gauge the impact of various momuments and memorials on other people, but I try each time to remember what the VietNam era was really like.

  The truth is, I remember being oblivious to the whole thing early on, doubtless like most people. As things racheted up, it began to impact people I actually knew, both in terms of guys who actually got sent there and other people I knew who got very actively involved in draft resisting, and even draft board raiding to stop the drafting of men in minority communities by destroying the records in South Chicago, among other places.

  This was, of course, long before everything was so completely computerized that such an effort would be meaningless on a practical level. But a good friend did a long stretch in Federal prison for one such effort.

  All of this to say, what are we doing today ? What have we done ? Many here have done yeoman's work trying to stop the madness-- especially in terms of politics,trying to get rid of those complicit in the Congress and elsewhere.

  We have been in demonstrations all over the world  before the invasion and since, camped in the ditch in Crawford, held candle-lit vigils, and Friday night sign wavings at busy intersections have been going on in some places for years. One friend, who died much too young recently, used to demonstrate out in front of a downtown courthouse regularly. He was often by himself in his witness.

  As the new year arrives, let us contemplate-- What will the reflection of our faces on the figurative Wall of an Iraq War Memorial look like ? What else are we called to do ? What new form of witness or action ?

  It is difficult to contemplate the distinct possibility that kids outside playing touch football today, not even out of high school, might still be called on to die in the most useless war we've ever foisted on the world.

  What am I going to do in 2007 to stop that from happening ? What are you going to do ?

  by murphy on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 03:53:09 PM PDT

  •  Murphy did we meet at Crawford?

    I looked at your list of diaries and seems I might have been there same time you were.  I went to Crawford that first week in August because I felt so compelled that at least one  military family needed to be there to stand in support of another military family, and that her brave stand would not be a lonely one.    

    There was no way for me to know when I went down from Washington state to Crawford, Texas just how large what would become 'Camp Casey' would become.  And no way to know how very quickly hundreds to thousands people would make the pilgrimage to Crawford in August 2005.  I stayed only one week and it was enough as people began arriving in that first week.  My daughter and grandchildren were at my home on a stop over before shipping out to their new base -  my son-in-law is a returning Iraq veteran.  Much as I yearned to spend the precious little time we had together with them, it was they who encouraged me to go.

     I noticed also from your diaries that you posted about the Philadelphia City Council Resolution to Bring the Troops Home.  I was there that day with my companions from the Bring Them Home Now Bus tour (central tour). Of all the activities, panels, events, vigils  that I participated in during those two months in August and Sept 2005, the vigil at the Vietnam Wall was the most emotionally wrenching for me.

    I remember how my hopes soared back in August and September 2005 - I still have the threads of that hope but more than a year has passed since then. Election results spurred new hope and I still hold onto that as we move into January and Congress goes into session.  Yet as we head into another new year with troops still in Iraq...knowing the current thinking is to increase the troop levels....

    My son-in-law will likely do a repeat tour sooner than he expected.   Meantime I worry about my two granddaughters who just began their first year of high school this year - how will they react to the aggressive military recruiting currently in place in high schools?  Will our military still be in Iraq when they graduate?  What will they remember about what their grandmother did or did not do of influence about this war when they get older and reflect on  this sequence in history?

     

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 04:21:40 PM PDT

    •  I went on a whim

      and was only there over the weekend, Friday to Monday. Cindy was sleeping in a camper by then, having been warned she might be in danger. And the ditches are full of fire ants !

      We might have crossed paths, but there were so many people there. You may recall, everyone just picked up a task and started doing it. I was directing traffic at one point and got a pretty good sunburn, then I was ferrying folks from the Peace House to Camp Casey at another. I helped a little with some computer stuff. Helped set up meals and sort donations of food, water, tp, and whatnot. There was plenty to do !

      One of my fondest memories is of just sitting around outside in the early morning with Cindy and her sister and a few others before the day's activities began on Saturday.

      We had a gathering in the park, and later caravaned up to Camp Casey-- just like Field of Dreams, a line cars that seemed to be infinite coming up the road to pay respects and view the crosses set up that were shortly thereafter mowed down by a disgruntled local.

      People came from all over the country, and from other countries as well. And a lot of Texans showed up, repeatedly saying "We're not all like him..."

      The prayer service on that Sunday morning was wonderful, too, with the ministers who travelled in a school bus to join us, including George Regis, the pastor emeritus of All Saints Episcopal, Pasadena, CA, the parish under IRS fire for his "too political" homily.

      It was an amazing experience, and I'm glad I took a chance and went to Texas. One of these days I hope to go back. By then, I hope we'll have something really big to celebrate.

      by murphy on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 05:15:46 PM PDT

•  I Think....

  Much in Pictures, reason I can look at a set of prints and visualize the building, in my construction profession.

  I've had a constant picture, in my mind, since the 'Shock and Awe' illegal invasion started.

  That picture is of another Reflective Wall Facing our Brothers and Sisters of 'The Wall' giving Reflections in both of both!

  Making a Corridor for the Public Viewing as they Walk Between Both, giving their Reflections off the Names of the Military Personal of Afganistan and Iraq on the one side, and their opposite reflection off the Names of the Vietnam Military Personal, with when looking at each they see the Reflection of the other!!!

  One Wall Of Reflection Didn't Stop This Nation From Repeating Our Sins f The Past, Maybe Two, Facing Each Other, Lessons Will Finally Sink In!!!!!!!!!

  by jimstaro on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 04:20:19 PM PDT

  •  Hold onto that thought and visualization

    perhaps should it be so - the two walls reflecting off each other will serve to remind this country never again to squander their young in this manner...

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 04:23:19 PM PDT

    •  Oh...

      The Picture Will Stay, as a Duty to my Brothers and Sisters of 'Nam and Now We Really Owe This Generation, For We Couldn't Stop The Rush Into This Quagmire!!!!!

      by jimstaro on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 04:26:15 PM PDT

•  Casualties of War

  Faces of the U.S. Military Killed in Iraq

  As photo box loads read the right side than follow those directions, also with tabs above for further information.

  by jimstaro on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 04:57:06 PM PDT

  •  Beat me to it

    by Janet G on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 05:06:06 PM PDT

    •  Ya but...

      The directions are in the Left Side box.

      My mind was still focussed on the photo box!

      by jimstaro on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 05:09:14 PM PDT

      •  Bring the Faces and their story is the best thing

        to do. It just might wake some of the people who still support the war up

        by Janet G on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 05:16:42 PM PDT

  •  Thank you. Photo is a bit of a 'wall''

    and it took me a while to 'get it' that each little square represents .....

    by dyingwarriors on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 06:36:14 PM PDT

•  60,000 KIA, Average Age: 19

  by Rockwood on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 05:00:13 PM PDT

•  The remembering will go on for lifetimes

  long after the acrimony and partisan politics have faded. The legacy of service in Iraq will be a similar pain for many of the same reasons as VietNam.

  Only now the answers to the questions of why are more transparent, obvious and politically rancid.

  And who are our most precious citizens now 30 years later when it comes to talking about military service and what it means to be an American soldier?

  Real veterans, not the pretend kind.

  Among them veterans who have banded together and taken a stand;

  who've spoken out and continue speaking - who in fact refuse to be silenced;

  and whose respect this current casual leadership has lost completely.

  When precious national blood is sacrificed and reason demands justification, shallow partisan politics seriously wound the fabric of all families in America.

  The time to speak out has never been more critical.

  Voices ... we are gaining more voices daily ... and it's our time to tell the leadership, regardless of which party, that this tragedy must stop as soon as possible.

  If we keep it up, we will inspire and draw  ever-increasing numbers of voices that will shout with a volume that will make the 2006 election results seem like mere whispers.

  Not one more soldier nor Iraqi need die to preserve the lies, but we've learned again and again that it's the lies that kill.

  dyingwarriors has written a marvelous piece here.

  I was given the honor of being first to read it before she posted it. I speak as a Veteran, as a member of Military Families Speak Out, and the man most inspired by his wife.

  by Arthur Ruger on Sun Dec 31, 2006 at 06:46:10 PM PDT