The Wall

		The Wall
		I had forgotten about Vietnam. I had moved its images to the deepest part of my memory. Then, a few years after the Vietnam Veterans Memorial was constructed, I visited Washington for a few days for a business seminar. I had some extra time on my hands, so I decided to visit the memorial. I knew very little about it, so I didn't know what to expect. The first thing I encountered was one of the stands at which they have mounted a book listing the dead from Vietnam and the location of their names on the wall. So I thought I would look up the names of the men I knew who had died there. Then I discovered my mistake - I had worked for years to forget all that. Although I could still see them, almost smell them, their faces were blank and I had forgotten their names. "It was early in the day, and I had nothing else to do. Surely I would remember some of the names if I read them. . . . So I read the names - all the names. I walked down the path to the center of the wall. Column after column, I slowly read the names on the wall. From the center of the wall up the ramp to the right. Then I went back to the other end and continued left to right. Back to where I started in the center of the wall." "As I progressed through the lists of names, I felt increasingly burdened in some deeply emotional sense. And feelings of anguish and sadness seemed to take on physical mass, straining me in a tangible way." "I had read all the names on the wall, and I still could not remember any of those I had served with who had died there. Oblivious to those around me, my chest heaved in a way I could not control, and I cried in a way I had never done before." (Excerpted from Images from the Otherland.)