On Friday my husband and I went to visit the Vietnam Veterans Memorial that was visiting Windsor.
A three-quarter scale replica of the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall in Washington, D. C., The Wall That Heals is dedicated to bringing awareness and education about the impact of the Vietnam War to communities.
The sun was shining after several days of rain, and puffy white clouds skated across a brilliant blue sky. The field at the Wilson Soccer Ranch was a deep green, but still mushy and muddy. The wall stretched across the field, bent in a gentle boomerang angle, cradling the men and women who came to pay respects to the men and women whose names were etched in the black surface.
The wall is made up of panels, which are numbered. The rows and rows of names are marked by a dot every ten rows, so that you can find a specific name by locating the panel and line you seek. It is a very accurate representation of the wall in Washington, D.C., but as it is on flat ground, the effect is reversed: in Washington, the wall is flat along the top, with the viewing area itself dipping slightly as you make your way to the center. Here the wall sloped from a low point on each end up to the tallest point at the center.
On our way to the viewing, Matt and I were talking about the last time The Wall That Heals came to Sonoma County. It was in the 1980s, and the location was the Santa Rosa Junior College. Separately, we both remembered going to go see it, and of the profound magnitude of the memorial. Matt had seen the original in Washington a year or so before that, and he said it was so much more powerful than he expected or was prepared for it to be. Of all the sites and monuments and historical points, two stood out as awe-inspiring: The Tomb of the Unknown Soldier and the Vietnam Veterans Wall.
I don’t have a personal connection to any name on the wall, but I am powerfully aware that each name represents a person who was loved by and missed by a huge ripple of people outward. Parents, siblings, extended family; neighbors, classmates, co-workers; brothers-in-arms and all those behind each service person, from the trainers on up to the people who escorted the bodies home. As I read a name, I got a flash of a smile, or a laugh, or a unique way of holding their head. I got a sense of their interests, whether it was science fiction novels, building ham radios or searching for the perfect BLT sandwich. I got a sense of the joy they expressed when the mail call included a letter from home, and the determination to make it back one day.
As we passed people, snippets of conversations rolled over me. One lady was counting individual names, trying to find a specific name. I pointed out the group of ten system, and a moment later she located the name. I asked if it was a loved one, and she told me it was a classmate; his death was over 50 years ago, and yet his memory remains in her heart.
Another couple was looking for a name on another panel, and when the man found it, he turned to his wife and said, “There he is. He died 10 feet from where I slept.” He described a sort of fortified ditch, with an L-shaped turn, and indicated the location of his buddy and his own space. His decades-long survivors’ guilt and grief was palpable.
Every so often there were fluttering American flags; I overheard a woman tell her husband that the flags were marking the local men and women who were on the corresponding panel. There were also several smaller flags, pinning down plastic-sleeved pages that introduced the women listed among all the men, and flowers laid in remembrance.
The war itself was controversial, but the sacrifice made by so many young men and women – both those who lost their lives, and those whose lives are forever changed by the experience – is incredible. I am grateful for the chance to honor them.
Juliana LeRoy wears many hats, including wife, mother, paraeducator and writer. She can be spotted around Windsor gathering material, or reached at ml****@so***.net.
