The Wall
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The Wall |
legacy | memory | notes | pain | connection | family | perspective
| scars
THE WALL
You pass the first panel, a single line of four men killed in May, 1968. Guys from
Colorado, New York, Texas, and Virginia. The second panel, three lines with fourteen
names. Six lines and twenty-nine names. Eight lines of thirty-nine names. As you
walk from one panel to the next the lists come thick and fast, the names a blur.
Soon
the panels are waist high, head high, then higher than you can reach.
The very day the memorial was dedicated another quality was discovered. People began
to touch it. It was a physical, spiritual compulsion. Some touch it with their
fingertips. Some lean into it with their fists. Some sweep their hands across it,
as
if stroking a horse's neck. Some visitors seem to embrace it.
Larry Heinemann © 1996
"You touch a name and the pain comes out."
Maya Lin speaking about her creation of the Vietnam Veterans' Memorial.
We crisscrossed the country, an ex-Marine traveling with an ex-NVA, trying to cut new
trails away from the tangled myths of our pasts, just as we had when Khue walked me
through her streets in Hanoi. In Washington, we went to the Vietnam Memorial.
I took Khue and Thai down to the panels where members of my squadron are listed.
I pointed out a name I always visit, Jim Childers, a boy who'd died in my place when
we'd switched missions during the last week of the tour. Khue seemed moved, but she
remained silent.
I wondered, looking at her, if the names meant more to her now that she'd met us, or
if she was thinking of her own names, the kids who died next to her on the Trail when
we were all kids.
I wondered if she was thinking of the millions of dead and hundreds of thousands of
missing the Vietnamese still have, and how unequal the numbers are, and I thought how
in the end it didn't matter, there was enough pain on both sides to allow connection
and forgiveness.
"We've all suffered," Khue said, reading my mind.
Look who I brought to you, I thought, as I touched my friend's name on the
Wall. And I thought: Rest in peace, Jim .
Wayne Karlin is a writer and co-editor with Le Minh Khue of The Other
Side of Heaven, an anthology of stories by Vietnamese and American writers
about the aftereffects of the war. © 1996
The Wall |
legacy | memory | notes | pain | connection | family | perspective | scars
Info About This Site | Contribute
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