Thanks; Veteran's Day; Vietnam Memorial; "Each name an extinguished life for an insane cause. And again I weep!"

Thanks for your infinite patience after last evening's whine-fest. A very special thanks to Richard and Rob. Both were kind enough to indulge my kvetching and offer words of encouragement. (As of this 02/07 update, neither link is valid. I know that Richard has appeared from in a number or reincarnations, but they all vanish. And I have even less knowledge about Rob.)

It does occur to me that a lot of what I've been saying has a detached tone to it. Almost as if I'm writing about a character I've created. Rob made an excellent point about the lack of personal details here. These give the reader some baseline information that sets the stage for the journal. Who am I? Where am I? Etc. Maybe I've been reading too many existentialist novels.

Today is Veteran's Day which means recognizing the many who have lived and died for the good of others. One of the most significant events I've experienced was several years ago in Washington, DC, as I visited the Vietnam Memorial. I approached the mall from along the side of the Lincoln Memorial. The Vietnam Memorial sits in front of the Lincoln Memoril in a depression, so that the grass above is flat; you would not even realize there was a monument there. So it was only when I made it to the front of the Lincoln Memorial that I saw the Vietnam Memorial.

Although I'd seen photos and videos of it, I was not prepared for the visciral impact; it was as though I'd been physically hit.. There are seventy granite panels of varying heights that form an elongaged chevron with equal sides. The ground at each end slowly slopes down from that point to the apex of the wall, As you walk down, the panels increase in size from a few feet in height until you reach the apex where they are twelve feet.

I'm going to quote from "Let Us Remember - The Vietnam Veterans Memorial" published by the Parks and History Association of Washington, D. C.

"Like a roll call of time, the memorial lists the casualities by the date of loss, starting at the vertex. The first named, Dale R. Buis, is inscribed un the date 1959 on Panel I E (left wing of monument). Names contiune eastward to Panel 70 E, reaching May 1968 at the end of the east wing, The sequence continues at the wall's opposite end on Panel W 70, as if the memorial has circled underground and surfaced again. Atg the the vertex, the toll ends with Richard Vande Geer at the bottom of Panel W 1 above the date 1975, End meets beginning, the circle is complete."

If there was ever a memorial of sheer genius, this is it. The creator was Maya Ying Lin, an architecture student at Yale. There is no way to praise her or her design enough.

The panels list the names of all the members of the US forces who died as a result of Vietnam. 57,000 names. An average age of 19.

There are kiosks around the Memorial where you can search a reference manual by name, home town or regiment. Each item gives the panel and position of the name. Hence to find a name on the panels, you are forced to search among the carved words. The panels' surface is highly glossed, so you can easily see yourself reflected among the names. So by a trick of light, you literally become part of the memorial.

In rememberance of those listed, visitors have brought flowers, plants, photos, candles, poems, books, every sort of memento. This was a totally unexpected event, and initially the US Park Service disgarded the items. But for several years, they have been collected and archived.

As you stand staring at the names, you feel alone, isolated with the vanished. Sounds disappear. As I saw my image in the granite, I wept. And whenever I remember the experience, I again am on the walk, my arm extended, trembling as I touch the tiny curves of those engraved names. Each name an extinguished life for an insane cause. And again I weep!

PAX!