Not too far east of the Lincoln Memorial is a monument that I have never visited in all of the times I’ve gone wandering round the District.
It wasn’t so much lack of desire to do so but rather a feeling that whilst it was certainly an exceptionally important one and worthy of spending some time to visit, there seemed to be a crucial element missing for me.
This is of course the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall…a rather unique series of odd-shaped obsidian walls inscribed with all of the names of the soldiers who had fallen during the Vietnam War from 1959 to 1975 and embedded in the side of a carved out section of the ground between the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument.
Dad’s name isn’t on that wall because it ultimately took 30 years after the last helicopters left the embassy in Saigon for Dad to finally succumb to all of the physical and medical maladies that were a direct result of his two tours of duty in that country.
And then I happened upon a certain small and unobtrusive marker near a statue of three soldiers in Vietnam-era kit looking like they were humping it through the jungle.
“In memory of the men and women who served in the Vietnam War and later died as a result of their service. We honour and remember their sacrifice.”
All of a sudden, I had a very real and personal connection to the Wall that I have never had before. A connection so sudden and profound that I couldn’t help but break down and start crying for a couple of minutes.
I’m sure the other visitors nearby probably wondered if I were a bit mental. Honestly, I couldn’t blame them if they did.
Dad’s name is not on the Wall and it likely never will be.
But that’s OK by me knowing now that survivors of the Vietnam War like him are being properly remembered as those who endured so much after surviving the horrors of that war and returning home to a fair amount of the population who were angry and disillusioned about the conflict who took it out on the surviving soldiers who wanted nothing more than to go home and try to forget and live their lives in as much peace as they could.
And that’s probably what was bugging me about the Wall the entire time…a seemingly missing connection between those who made the ultimate sacrifice and those who came back not quite the same as when they had left as if a significant part of them had died in Vietnam as well.
So many people were profoundly affected by that war and the knock-on effects years after the fact. At least now post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) is getting the proper attention and treatment it needs and military members returning from the several wars since then seem to be treated far better than the ones returning from Vietnam were.
These survivors cannot be forgotten and it is a good thing that they are remembered in close proximity to the memorial to those who didn’t make it out of Vietnam alive.
It was indeed a time to cry. And I am not in the least little bit ashamed of the fact that I did.
