Posted by
Charles Mudgeon on Wednesday, July 18, 2007 9:19:29 AM
It's a peaceful place in the heart of our capital with lush grass and trees and pools of water. The song of birds is clear above the not too distant noises of traffic.
It's a peaceful place where neither the Washington Monument, obscured by the foliage, nor the Lincoln Memorial intrudes on the solitude.
On either side it begins with a single name carved into the blackness. The names soon rise: to the knees; to the waist; to the eyes and beyond. Tens of names become hundreds, then thousands.
Names wrap around the body and permeate the spirit. Names, an overwhelming blur of names together murmur a solemn eloquence unmatched by any words yet spoken.
Here and there a single name catches the eye. A name unknown. But for some brief moment in time, this name is all.
The name belongs to a soldier and he is dead; killed in the context of the somber black wall; killed just before the mass of names on one side, just after the names on the other. Whether evil or ordinary or of exceptional goodness, he is no more; a friend no more, a son no more, a daddy no more, no more, no more, no more, no more.
No one recorded here survived that faraway war. But none can be forgotten. The concentrated force of names will not permit it.
They leap out, these thousands and thousands and thousands of names. From overhead. From left. From right. They assault the senses and burn into memory. And when the names recede as they began, the memory remains, though the emotions are drained.
Surely this is the perfect memorial, designed as if by the hand of God to become a part of its serene surroundings. Its power, its simple grace, consecrates the ground and also the final commitment of those whose names blend with the landscape.
Surely this memorial, above all others, pays tribute to fallen countrymen as tributes ought to be paid: Remembrance in quite dignity; acknowledgement of personal sacrifice.
And yet there are those who would defile this place; desecrate the area; detract from the profound impact of the names. They would erect statues and raise flags and otherwise interrupt the flow of tranquility over the land.
But here, in this place, in this one special spot, to add would be to subtract. Because it is here at the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, as it is now, where the true legacy of war is squarely faced.
The true legacy of war is names; names of the dead soldiers.
Oh, so many names.
(This was taken from a newspaper column I wrote on May 25, 1984. It was Memorial Day weekend. If I had remembered that I still had a copy of it, I would have posted it this past Memorial Day. My eyes welled up when I wrote it; they well well up when I read it; they even well up when I think about it. No smiles or giggles today, but I hope you enjoy it anyway.)