I can't believe it's 25 years old on Tuesday.
At first, I hated the design --- a black granite "scar" on the landscape; a dark symbol of shame and defeat, I and many others thought --- since then, I've come to appreciate it for the quiet memories of friends, schoolmates, and comrades it inspires in me ... from high school, college, and the Navy ... if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend you visit it. Or at least visit the "moving wall", which is available to the country at large and well worth your time.
"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind...."
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, USA
1 January 1970 -- Dak To, Vietnam -- Listed as KIA February 7, 1978
THE WALL
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL, WA, D.C.
At first, I hated the design --- a black granite "scar" on the landscape; a dark symbol of shame and defeat, I and many others thought --- since then, I've come to appreciate it for the quiet memories of friends, schoolmates, and comrades it inspires in me ... from high school, college, and the Navy ... if you have the opportunity, I highly recommend you visit it. Or at least visit the "moving wall", which is available to the country at large and well worth your time.
"If you are able, save for them a place inside of you and save one backward glance when you are leaving for the places they can no longer go.
Be not ashamed to say you loved them, though you may or may not have always. Take what they have taught you with their dying and keep it with your own.
And in that time when men decide and feel safe to call the war insane, take one moment to embrace those gentle heroes you left behind...."
Major Michael Davis O'Donnell, USA
1 January 1970 -- Dak To, Vietnam -- Listed as KIA February 7, 1978
THE WALL
VIETNAM VETERANS MEMORIAL, WA, D.C.

