Posted on 11/10/2007 12:44:26 PM PST by freema
WASHINGTON - They are lined up like footnotes to the names etched on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial's polished black granite, leaning against its base, some a collective tribute to the fallen, others bearing a message for just one of the dead.
An American Legion uniform cap from Kansas, a police patch from a town in Georgia, a note to "GRAMDADAD" that appears to have been written by the unpracticed hand of a young child. A homemade plaque with plastic red poppies pasted to it, dedicated to a "Band of Brothers." Poems from middle school students.
Full box of tissue alert.
(Excerpt) Read more at news.yahoo.com ...
Thanks for the post. Haven’t been and still can’t muster the strength to visit the traveling Wall when it comes around. Perhaps some day!
I went during GOE I. I couldn’t go the day everyone was there. I just couldn’t. I didn’t even know anyone on the wall personally, but made a rubbing for a fellow FReeper.
A Volunteer was there, thank Goodness, and helped me because I couldn’t see.
It will always remain as one of the most important days of my life, the day I visited The Wall.
Thanks for the post.
It was somewhat similar at Ground Zero after 9/11. Children left messages for their dead fathers, school children wrote letters, many people left flowers, people scrawled prayers on the fences. I always found it very moving to walk by and to stop and look at them.
Almost all of it disappeared after Bloomberg became mayor. I’d like to think that it went into storage somewhere, but knowing Bloomberg, it was probably tossed into the garbage.
On a different note, the artist Keith Haring, who became a kind of icon of the 70s, painted his cartoon figures all down the East Side drive on a construction fence. The whole things went into the trash. He also painted a famous mural on a handball backboard in a playground around 96th street, called “Crack is Wack.” The city painted it over. Then when the elite complained, they commissioned him to do it again.
It was actually a wonderful contribution to morality—a warning against drug abuse, which showed the addicts falling into hell, as a warning to kids not to do it.
Bit of a digression. But the spontaneous gifts and memorials to the dead of 9/11, by children and visitors from all over the country and the world, were much like the tokens left at the Vietnam Wall.
It was absolutely mobbed. Parades, speeches, just an absolute spit-full of people on Michigan ave & Grant park.
Tucked away on Michigan avenue was the traveling wall.
Amidst the caterwauling of sound all around it, the grounds on which it stood was absolutely, eerily, drop-dead silent.
Talk about getting into the depths of my soul...
I was where you were at. God gave me the courage to recognize that They were my strength. Always was, always will be.
I came to the realization that I owed to my brothers, heroes all, my respect and everlasting gratitude.
Welcome home....
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..A Freeper Vet goes to the Vietnam Wall..
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1019769/posts
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Vietnam Wall: 25th Anniversary, Nov. 10, 2007
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1920627/posts
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Deb-
Get your kleenex, I’m out.
Click the pic and read the comment below.
Yep, I’ve got a Fox .35 model airplane engine that flew in the skies above Chu Lai RVN before Tet. I plan on leaving it at the Wall whenever I go to Washington again.
We had a lot of fun building and flying that thing, was in a CL P-40, got the kit and everything from a mailorder house in New Jersey.
Welcome Brothers.
ImpBill, I am like you, have not found the courage to visit the wall. I did go on line once and looked up the list of all those that were killed in Viet Nam from the 173rd. It took me several hours to read each name.
I guess they will never be forgotten as long as someone remembers them.
I was 7 years old when my big brother and my Daddy went to Viet Nam. I was blessed that they both came home. My thanks to all who served in this Nation’s most “unpopular” war. They who served are all heroes to me.
mrs
I visited the wall in 1990. A good friend is there. I made a rubbing of his name for his mom. I cried. My wife was embarrassed; she didn’t understand.
Sometimes, we are so ‘alone’ no matter how many people are near.
I was active duty during Nam, but wasn’t sent there. My friend, Calvin, lived just up the road from me. He was killed about 6 months before I enlisted. (No, I wasn’t drafted.)
He and I were friends since about third grade. What is truly sad is so many of my friends came ‘half way back’ from Nam.
My thoughts while in reverence for those who gave all, still are with those, like us, who came home to a thankless nation.
Our charge now is to make sure "that" doesn't happen on our watch!
God Bless and thanks for your service, then and now!
I will always be marked, having witnessed the Vets confront the moonbats at GOE which was tantamount to an cleansing, witnessing (from afar) the visits at The Wall, and sensing the peace at The Wall when I returned on Sunday.
Vietnam veterans on The Wall and otherwise have a higher purpose than most folks recognize.
The woman sitting in the background is a member of the Wall Committee, and was a nurse in VietNam. She visits the memorial whenever she is in town, and talks to "the guys".
I take pictures whenever I get to the Wall
These were taken the day of the "Kerry Lied" rally in 2004.
"Tell my wife that I love her".
Looking down the wall at 5PM.
In God We Trust, Semper Fi
These are, perhaps, the most beautiful photographs I’ve ever seen.
Nurses Memorial
I can never thank these women enough. Long Binh Medevac Hospital
The grief on her face is so real, her faih so strong.
Wehn I posted this earlier, I didn't do it justice.
In God We Trust......Semper Fi
Such inspiration. Do you suppose they know that they STILL give, a strength that is sorely needed at times.
Yes Virgina... there really are things called... God, Duty, Country, Honor.
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NEVER FORGET
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The Man Who Predicted 9/11 =
9/11 & Vietnam War Lifesaver RICK RESCORLA, ..R.I.P.
http://www.ArmchairGeneral.com/forums/showthread.php?t=24361
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NEVER FORGET
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NEVER FORGET
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‘WE WERE SOLDIERS ONCE...& YOUNG’...4 FREEDOM
http://www.Freerepublic.com/forum/a39626542519c.htm
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NEVER FORGET
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+ Tom Presby +
+ Bill Farley +
+ Steve Melnik +
+ Mike Corrigan +
+ Chris Battaglia +
“50,000 Names (Carved in the Wall” .....George Jones
http://mywebpages.comcast.net/singingman7/TNOTW.htm
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Transcript: Gen. Peter Pace on ‘FOX News Sunday’
http://www.Freerepublic.com/focus/f-news/1546978/posts
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