Wednesday, July 09, 2003
Fourth of July week in the Nation's capital
LOOKING AHEAD by Wally Dobelis
The Vietnam War Veterans Memorial is a black granite retaining wall that flattens a sloped meadow in the sprawling park called Constitution Gardens, part of the Washington Mall, between the Washington and Lincoln Memorials. It consists of 74 three-and-a-half foot wide plaques set in a wide L-shaped tapered angle, engraved with the names of American fighting men and women who died in the Vietnam War. The plaques start as slivers at the ends, holding a single line of names and widening to a 10-foot height at the center crease, with 137 lines of names. The Memorial , last counted, lists 58,235 Americans killed or missing in action during the 1959-75 Vietnam War. The listings are in chronological casualty date order, alphabetically within the date, starting with the 1959 dead, at the break in the center, and carrying on to the tapered left end, then resuming at the tip of the taper on the right, to finish at the center break, with the 5/15/1975casualties of the Mayaguez rescue, resulting in the deaths of 41 Marines, a month after the American withdrawal from Saigon.
The five names on each line in the black monument are justified to the center, intensifying the wing-like feeling of the memorial. Each name is marked with a tiny cross (non-religious) or a diamond. The cross signifies “missing in action.” When the remains of a MIA soldier are found and identified, via DNA and other means, the cross is re-chiseled into a diamond. If the MIA is found alive, the cross is circled, the medical symbol for life. Every Memorial Day new names are added to the memorial, some 1,300 to date. They are placed as the sixth entry on lines that have space, nearest to the date on which the death occurred. Since inception, some 400 symbols have been changed from cross to diamond. There are no circles.
At the bottom of the wall is a shallow trough, where visitors deposit flowers, tiny American flags and messages. On the day we came, a group of school children from New Hampshire had left their pages of messages, neatly encased in plastic wraps. The theme had been to sacrifice something , expressing gratitude for the sacrifices the deceased had borne for our common good. A boy named Jake enclosed his library card, bearing the motto “World of Opportunity,” with a message thanking the deceased, whose loss of life, no matter what one thinks of the war, had expanded his opportunities for a free future. But there was also a man with a t-shirt inscribed “those who lead us into a war should first learn how to win,” a message for the ages.
At the entrance to the memorial slope there are stands of plastic-encased books of typewritten pages, containing the names of he deceased, in alphabetical order, enabling relatives to locate the inscriptions, by plaque and line. Some pages had fallen out and were trampled, beyond use. I picked them up, to be kept, alongside a few souvenir papers rescued from the rain-soaked sprawling 9/11 memorial in Union Square, similar leftovers after a bunch of us volunteers packed truckloads of them, to be warehoused and restored, for use in a future New York memorial of that fateful day.
At the Vietnam wall, in several places there were relatives of the victims, taking rubbings of the names. A graying veteran wearing his war insignia, volunteer guide at the site (since the dedication day in 1982, he told me) hauled around a ladder, so that the higher placed names could be reached. There are occasional veterans of ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) visiting the site, but no former Vietcongs, to his knowledge. Unlike the Japanese visitors at the Arizona in Pearl Harbor, who apologize for the attack, the people of that country consider the government of South Vietnam as aggressors.
This was our first sightseeing day in Washington, part of a “two weddings, two birthdays and a funeral” week that is taking us all over the Northeast. This visit was to honor the Nation’s birthday.
The tourist’s Washington is a rough rectangle from Woodley Park/Zoo/ Washington National Cathedral in the Northwest, along wealthy Connecticut Ave. to the embassy rich Dupont Circle, then proceeding via Massachusetts Ave. to Union Station and the RFK Stadium in the Southeast, looping West via Delaware Ave., around the Library of Congress and the US Capitol, then along Independence Ave, surrounded by official Washington on both sides, down to the FDR and Jefferson Memorials at the Tidal Basin, and up North again, along the Potomac.There is a laminated pictorial map you can buy at the National Parks bookstore at the FDR that helps in recognizing all the famous buildings, as you drive through. I drive with trepidation, reciting the mantra picked up at the FDR, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself,” and ignoring the horn-blowing natives. More later.
The Vietnam War Veterans Memorial is a black granite retaining wall that flattens a sloped meadow in the sprawling park called Constitution Gardens, part of the Washington Mall, between the Washington and Lincoln Memorials. It consists of 74 three-and-a-half foot wide plaques set in a wide L-shaped tapered angle, engraved with the names of American fighting men and women who died in the Vietnam War. The plaques start as slivers at the ends, holding a single line of names and widening to a 10-foot height at the center crease, with 137 lines of names. The Memorial , last counted, lists 58,235 Americans killed or missing in action during the 1959-75 Vietnam War. The listings are in chronological casualty date order, alphabetically within the date, starting with the 1959 dead, at the break in the center, and carrying on to the tapered left end, then resuming at the tip of the taper on the right, to finish at the center break, with the 5/15/1975casualties of the Mayaguez rescue, resulting in the deaths of 41 Marines, a month after the American withdrawal from Saigon.
The five names on each line in the black monument are justified to the center, intensifying the wing-like feeling of the memorial. Each name is marked with a tiny cross (non-religious) or a diamond. The cross signifies “missing in action.” When the remains of a MIA soldier are found and identified, via DNA and other means, the cross is re-chiseled into a diamond. If the MIA is found alive, the cross is circled, the medical symbol for life. Every Memorial Day new names are added to the memorial, some 1,300 to date. They are placed as the sixth entry on lines that have space, nearest to the date on which the death occurred. Since inception, some 400 symbols have been changed from cross to diamond. There are no circles.
At the bottom of the wall is a shallow trough, where visitors deposit flowers, tiny American flags and messages. On the day we came, a group of school children from New Hampshire had left their pages of messages, neatly encased in plastic wraps. The theme had been to sacrifice something , expressing gratitude for the sacrifices the deceased had borne for our common good. A boy named Jake enclosed his library card, bearing the motto “World of Opportunity,” with a message thanking the deceased, whose loss of life, no matter what one thinks of the war, had expanded his opportunities for a free future. But there was also a man with a t-shirt inscribed “those who lead us into a war should first learn how to win,” a message for the ages.
At the entrance to the memorial slope there are stands of plastic-encased books of typewritten pages, containing the names of he deceased, in alphabetical order, enabling relatives to locate the inscriptions, by plaque and line. Some pages had fallen out and were trampled, beyond use. I picked them up, to be kept, alongside a few souvenir papers rescued from the rain-soaked sprawling 9/11 memorial in Union Square, similar leftovers after a bunch of us volunteers packed truckloads of them, to be warehoused and restored, for use in a future New York memorial of that fateful day.
At the Vietnam wall, in several places there were relatives of the victims, taking rubbings of the names. A graying veteran wearing his war insignia, volunteer guide at the site (since the dedication day in 1982, he told me) hauled around a ladder, so that the higher placed names could be reached. There are occasional veterans of ARVN (Army of the Republic of Vietnam) visiting the site, but no former Vietcongs, to his knowledge. Unlike the Japanese visitors at the Arizona in Pearl Harbor, who apologize for the attack, the people of that country consider the government of South Vietnam as aggressors.
This was our first sightseeing day in Washington, part of a “two weddings, two birthdays and a funeral” week that is taking us all over the Northeast. This visit was to honor the Nation’s birthday.
The tourist’s Washington is a rough rectangle from Woodley Park/Zoo/ Washington National Cathedral in the Northwest, along wealthy Connecticut Ave. to the embassy rich Dupont Circle, then proceeding via Massachusetts Ave. to Union Station and the RFK Stadium in the Southeast, looping West via Delaware Ave., around the Library of Congress and the US Capitol, then along Independence Ave, surrounded by official Washington on both sides, down to the FDR and Jefferson Memorials at the Tidal Basin, and up North again, along the Potomac.There is a laminated pictorial map you can buy at the National Parks bookstore at the FDR that helps in recognizing all the famous buildings, as you drive through. I drive with trepidation, reciting the mantra picked up at the FDR, “there is nothing to fear but fear itself,” and ignoring the horn-blowing natives. More later.
# posted by Wally Dobelis @ 4:35 PM 
