"I came to see my son's name."

Copyright 1996-2005 Jim Schueckler

   "I came to see my son's name." Those or similar words are on the hearts, and sometimes the lips of people who journey to see a “special name” on the Vietnam Veterans Memorial, the "Wall", in Washington, DC. But this wasn't the real Wall and this wasn’t our nation’s capital, this was The Moving Wall, a half-sized replica visiting Batavia, New York for a five days.
   My duties as a volunteer at The Moving Wall were the same as I had learned as a National Park Service volunteer at the real Wall: to help people find that "special name" and help make name rubbings. I knew I could also provide another service to visitors, to give them the opportunity to talk about the person behind the name.
   While searching the directory I carried or leading a visitor to the name they sought, I would quietly ask "Was he a friend or a relative?" Only a handful of visitors ever give me a short answer; most wanted to talk. For some, the words poured out as if the floodgates of a dam had just burst open. For others, the words came out slowly and deliberately between long pauses. Sometimes they choked on the words and they cried. I silently prayed that my words would help to heal, not to hurt.
   Our culture mourns and respects the dead, but in the shadow of that bitter war, the sacrifices of those who died and their families were not allowed to have dignity. They died in a war that some Americans had blamed on the soldiers who were called to fight it. Mothers and fathers came to see that their sons had not been forgotten; that their names were remembered; that someone else cares.
   An elderly mother came to The Moving Wall in a wheelchair. As we looked for her son's name, she described his interests during high school, and then the agonizing days when she was first told that her son was injured, then missing, then classified as "lost at sea." Not even his remains ever came home.
   "'Til death do us part" becomes a painful prophesy during war. One widow showed me a picture of her husband and separate picture of their daughter -- a daughter that her husband never met -- a girl who grew up without a father. I was painfully aware that had some enemy soldiers been slightly better marksmen, my wife and son might have come to the Wall to see my name.
   Sisters and brothers came to see a name. One brother so close in age that "People were always calling us by each other’s name, and we both hated it." A sister said "I was so much younger than my brother I didn't realize why my Mom was crying when we said goodbye to him at the airport."
   One aunt said "He stayed overnight at our house so frequently that one neighbor thought he was our son." An uncle lamented: "I took him hunting. I was the one who taught him to like guns." When cousins came to the Wall, many said: "He was like a brother."
    Veterans came to see the names of their buddies. Most of them were eager to tell me about their friend or how he died. Many remembered the day in great detail; and some spoke of what's called survivor guilt.
    "He went out on patrol in my place that day." Or 
    "If I hadn't been home on leave, he wouldn't be dead." Others were bothered that they couldn't remember much about their friend because they had suppressed the thoughts for so many years.
    Many people who came were not blood relatives, but remembered:
    A high school teacher told me "I taught four of these boys."
   Others said,
    "He was the little boy who lived across the street."
    "We were going steady in high school."
    "He delivered my newspapers."
    "I was his Boy Scout leader."
    "I worked with his mother at the time he was killed."
    There were hundreds of similar personal connections between visitors and one or more names on the Wall.
     Two weeks after the visit of The Moving Wall, a friend told my wife "I don't understand all the concern about the Wall; why don't people just forget about that dirty war?" For many, the Wall does not need to be explained or justified. Those who do not understand are more fortunate than those who do.

(The author is the founder of The Virtual Wall®, www.VirtualWall.org)

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Permission to reprint this essay is hereby granted. Publishers may edit for brevity, provided the final sentence is included (about The Virtual Wall) and Jim Schueckler maintains all copyrights. Contact Jim Schueckler at Jim@VirtualWall.org or 585-727-1283