The Park Service in D.C. helps you find names of
loved ones and friends on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial Wall.
This is so emotional, it is extremely moving, and private amidst droves of people.
Among the visitors to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial some are simply looking and moving on, others pausing to take in the reason some items are left at the wall. Kids reading names out loud, tourists talking as if they're on a walk in any park in the USA, bumping into others on the crowded path ... yet the somber, sacred place is transformed as you kneel or stretch to obtain your rubbing. Others are shut out, and the graphite of the pencil against the pre-printed "rubbing form" and the reflecting black granite bearing more than 58,000 names becomes one with you for an instant, making the name appear more real than the air you finally gasp and breathe.
It is an awful place, it is a wonderful place.
Memories flood into the brains of the visitors. Whether you were there in your youth, or a loved one or friend never returned, or you simply came to the Wall because a loved one needed this trip, each one is choking back his/her knotted up throat, and leaky eyes won't obey.
How many tears have been shed in front of this massive display of loss since it's unveiling in 1982? We didn't lose in Vietnam, we gained. Along with our own lives, we have a wonderful respect for those who serve America right now. We are free to walk that path because we've chosen to look back, look ahead and always remember to say, "Welcome Home."
Run For The Wall, so many people have made this Run, hundreds of people will go for the first time in a few days. My prayer is that they ride safe, arrive safe and experience the healing that the mission called "Run For The Wall" has prepared for them.
Russ "Sheepdog" approaching the wall 2009.
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