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  Chapter 03

     by Capt. Ron Sheffield

   My First Visit to the Wall

 

The Vietnam Veterans Memorial "The Wall".  Photos by David Green  taken in Oct. 2003.

To search a name on "The Wall" click below:
 http://thewall-usa.com/

 For a large view of these and other Wall photos click here > Dave's Photos .

 

The Vietnam Memorial Wall is in Washington, D.C.  It has 58,000 names on it of Americans that died during the Vietnam War.  It has the names of 20 people I personally knew that were killed between 1965 and 1972.  Some of these were in my units and others I knew from somewhere else in the Army.  One of them was my room mate in 1967 and I saw his aircraft fall out of the sky on Christmas night 1967.  There was absolutely nothing I could do as the aircraft hit and exploded.  I can still remember that accident as clearly - as if it occurred yesterday.

While on a 1995 business trip to the D.C. area, four of us from California went to the D.C. Mall with the specific point of visiting the Wall as it is called by Vietnam veterans.  I was the only veteran in the group.  I remember it being a cold and misty December night with very few people walking about.  We parked the car around 10 PM along the street adjacent to the memorial and walked over to the Wall.  I looked at the listing to find the panels containing the names of my 20 comrades.  I had no paper so I wrote the panel numbers on my hand just as we had done with radio frequencies in Vietnam.  We walked to the first panel which contained the names of Clark and Woods.  I stopped and reached out and touched their names.  I felt a deep sorrow overcome me as I stood there touching their names.  My companions saw that something unique was happening to me and reverently walked away.  As I stood there I had a rush of fond memories followed by the awful memory of that 1967 Christmas night crash.  I could not stop the tears as they freely flowed from my eyes.  I don’t know how long I stood there before I moved to the other panels that contained friends’ names.  I had no sense of time or cold or others’ presence.  When I finished paying my respects to all 20, I found that I was the only person at the Wall.  I was there almost 2 hours and did not feel the cold or damp.  It was like the weather did not exist.  I sadly walked back to the car.  I said nothing as we drove the 30 miles back to Greenbelt, Maryland.  Before we walked back into the hotel, the other three each hugged me and asked if I was all right before saying good night.  I didn’t sleep much that night.

On Memorial Day 2004, a similar smaller traveling Wall with the 58,000 names was four blocks from our church as we sat, worshiped and honored our veterans.  Memorial Day reminded us of these 58,000 and others throughout our history that gave their lives for our country.  When I went to the traveling Vietnam Memorial, I also had that same sadness I had in Washington, D.C., but time had healed some of those wounds.  Having said that, there will always be an empty spot in my heart for each and every one of those 20 young men who were taken in the prime of their lives.  My grandson was there and helped me find those same names.  I tried to explain that each name was a real person with real family and friends.  I am sure he did not understand, being only 9 years old, and I honestly hope that he never has to find out what I was trying to explain to him.

I pray that God will continue to bless and protect America and the men and women of her armed forces.

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