The Vietnam Veterans Memorial (VVM) in Washington, D.C. is a moving experience at any time—but on Veterans Day and Memorial Day weekends, it is a complexity of emotions. At once heartbreaking and consoling, tragic and yet healing, it is both sacred and profound.
Thousands of Vietnam veterans, mothers and fathers, families and friends, descend upon the memorial on those days. They come to touch the sheer granite wall that is inscribed with the names of every serviceman who died, or was declared missing in action, as a result of the Vietnam War.
They track their loved ones from the four books encased at the entrance, moving down the wall, peering and stopping to gently trace their fingers over an etched name: Many weep; some lay memorabilia that is picked up at the end of the day and archived for eventual display; others go quietly down memory lane, visiting a past that for most has been too painful to revisit.
